Why can't we have good & motorable roads?

It was a sweet, smooth ride until my street. As the tricycle maneuvered its way through the bad, bumpy road, I held on to the railings that separated the driver's seat from the passengers, praying to God that the man would not stop halfway or ask that I add some money to the original one thousand that was his fare.

Source
I had just gotten a new traveling box for my clothes, along with foodstuff for the month. There was no way I could carry all of those home by myself.

When I was looking for an apartment, I asked the house agent to help me get a place where I could access light and water. When he showed me my house through pictures and said it was in an estate, I was excited. It was like the perfect place at the time.

I set up a physical meeting with him to see the caretaker of the apartment and see the particular house that was vacant.

It was perhaps the fact that I was in a vehicle along with the excitement that didn't let me worry about the road.

It was obvious that the road was dilapitating but it was never a problem until the rainy season.

Whenever we returned from school, the motorcycles at the entrance to the estate would shake their heads when we told them our street was the destination. Then the ones who opted to carry us would charge almost twice the usual amount or tell us that they would be dropping us halfway.

On most of those days and nights, we had to walk all the way from our compound to half of the estate before taking a motorcycle to the junction. The annoying part was that we still had to pay the same amount.

At some point, we had to resort to trekking to school, shaking our heads at familiar motorcyclists who honked at us while they drove past.

If we were lucky, a cyclist would stop and ask us to hop on his bike for free. We didn't want to take motorcycles anymore because we didn't see the point if we were going to walk halfway and still get to pay the normal fare for the full distance.

Not too long after we moved in and the rainy season began, my neighbors and I began to complain bitterly. Apart from the fact that the road was hardly motorable, it was muddy and if one was not careful, it could cause severe injuries. My roommate herself had slipped there once and bruised her elbow. The tricycle driver dropped me at my gate angrily and I had to plead with him not to charge more than the extra fare.

As I arrived at my compound, I heard my neighbors conversing loudly.

To my greatest surprise, they said that the road had been like that for over two years. One of them who had stayed the longest even said he suggested to the landlord that there should be a meeting among other landlords so they could contribute to fixing the road but nothing had still been done about it.

I shook my head and walked into my apartment wondering what could be done about this situation. I was also provoked to wonder why the government was fond of fixing the main roads and leaving the neighboring streets, it wasn't the first time I had come across such a situation, leaving the residents to suffer from water puddles and bumpy roads.

Later that evening when my roommate returned, I told her what I heard my neighbors discussing. She laughed and told me that our landlords were the government of the neighborhood. They were not going to do anything about it because it didn't directly affect any of them.

I thought about what she said for some time. She was not totally wrong but it still didn't mean nothing could be done regarding the road situation. It was a terrible thing and accidents were inevitable in places like that. I too had nearly fallen off a motorcycle more than once because of how terrible that road was.

Now that nobody was ready to fix the road, neither the landlords nor the government, what could we do? It was almost the same everywhere but like my landlord said, we just have to keep hoping on the government. It's possible that one of them would come to their senses and remember the common men who voted them in

I am forced to think that the government is not even the problem of this country. We the masses are. When we allow them to completely control our lives and make ourselves helpless before them, then they take advantage of it.

I hope that both the leaders and citizens of tomorrow do better.