Oyo State governor, Adebayo Alao-Akala, got what may be a preview of what he will encounter during the April polls when his campaign convoy was held up yesterday by angry drivers along the Old Oyo-Ogbomoso road. The campaign buses of the governor, who was not in the convoy, were filled with politicians and plastered with party logos and posters of Mr. Alao-Akala. The convoy was headed to a campaign event when it came upon a traffic snarl along the road due to a broken-down tanker which blocked most of the road. Smaller cars could manoeuvre their way through but larger vehicles like trailers could not get past.
One of the drivers, Muhammadu Hadidu, who spoke to NEXT, said he had spent two days at the location, claiming that the broken-down tanker owner also owned his own vehicle and he could not leave the tanker and its driver behind.
“You can see us,” he said. “How do we do? We are giving way to small vehicles to pass, if they can, but the road is so small and our own cannot pass.” Mr. Hadidu said that he was waiting for a technician to come and fix the tanker.
The trailer drivers blamed the vehicle’s breakdown on the bad road, which they held the governor responsible for. Mr. Alao-Akala’s convoy tried to bypass the tanker but was stopped by other drivers. The convoy then tried to take a shortcut through a nearby village, but residents there did not allow it to pass. Members of the convoy pleaded to be allowed to pass, claiming that they were late for their event, and blamed the bad road on the heavy weight of the trailers. The last bus in the convoy, carrying musical instruments, tried to make a U-turn after sighting the stand-still traffic. Other drivers and villagers immediately blocked its progress.
After several hours, a Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) vehicle also arrived at the scene, but the drivers booed their efforts to clear the traffic jam. Taiwo Alao, a villager at Oolo, a village between Ilora and Obada in the Oyo area, told NEXT that trailers breaking down was nothing new to residents of the area.
“Since I saw the accident, I know it must be a trailer,” he said. “I am a retired railway staff. In those days, railway will come to Ebute Metta to pack all these things that trailers carry now. Government should do something.”
A few youth were seen siphoning fuel from the broken-down tanker. Neither Mr. Alao-Akala’s supporters nor the FRSC officers were willing to comment on the situation. At the time NEXT left the scene, the governor’s supporters were still begging the drivers to allow them to pass.
