Open Letter To Governor Obiano On Blockage Of Zik’s Avenue By The Police Commissioner By Polycarp Onwubiko

I humbly wish to draw the attention of Your Excellency to the deliberately induced traffic hold-up along the Zik’s Avenue Amawbia   and proffer a pragmatic headway to ameliorate the nagging menace.

When the rumour of Boko Haram infiltration to the states in the south was gaining ground, the former Commissioner of Police defied all sense of fairness, decency, public interest and even moral consideration and blocked the Federal High Way –Zik’s Avenue in front of the office at Amawbia to commercial vehicles and at their whims and caprices to all vehicles expect governor’s convoy which might have made the governor not to know that the high way is closed. The former commissioner of police because some misguided tribal bigots   had the temerity and effrontery to do it simply because some misguided tribal bigots    regard the Igbo as “conquered people” who could not question any unconscionable and reckless actions against personal or collective interest.  No police officer could indulge in such flagrant abuse of office in the Northern States of the Federation.  In virtually all the state capitals, police offices are located along the streets and major roads and none of them has been closed to traffic because of the imaginary bombs of the Boko Haram religious extremists.  

          In reality today, Boko Haram murderous gambits have been concentrated in the North–East part of the country and there is no reported case of bombing police stations in the southern part of the country. Anambra people were very angry at the thoughtless, callous and irresponsible action of the former Police Commissioner, which his successors naively continued. People hoped that the closure of the high way   would be short –lived and protested by the former Governor, Chief Peter Obi who closed his ears so as not offend the almighty commissioner police.  

          Motorists have been subjected to agony as they divert and meander through the narrow streets and the one-lane road to Awka South Local Council officer and prisons. Drivers of trailers, tankers and tippers with heavy loads recount their ordeal in the narrow bending.   The one lane to Nibo and Awka south local government council  headquarters  has been damaged due to huge traffic and the gargantuan weight of tripper lorries with sand, trailers and oil tankers.

          Due to crass impunity, which is the order of the day in Nigeria, the operatives of the FRSC gleefully station themselves along Zik’s Avenue near Paul University and the road to the Ministry of Works to supposedly check motorists who do not affix seat belt and other things. The tricycle operators avoid them by going through narrow streets and subjecting passengers to agony and bitter complaints.

The reasonable expectation is that FRSC should operate along the High Ways and not streets/roads right inside the towns. Putting on seat belt is good but it is ideally and specifically meant for high ways and roads where vehicles engage in speed. It is not meant for  roads and streets inside towns because no driver goes on speeds that would engender fatal accidents as there are  many vehicles on the road and streets. The FRSC officials sheepishly cling to the law on  seat belt but fail to make use of their reasoning faculty to save motorists from agony in traffic snarls since seat belt is not for the streets and roads inside the towns and villages. It is meant to minimize the impact of accident due to speed in roads and expressways where speed is evitable.  

Prayers

(i)  Your Excellency Sir,

          You are passionately requested to call the present Commissioner of Police and ask him to dismantle the roadblock  in front of his office at Amawbia immediately since there is no threat to lives of the police in the office; more so when such thing is not seen anywhere in other  parts of the country.

Alternatively, you can speak with the Inspector General of Police who will direct him to dismantle the roadblock. There is no threat of Boko Haram Bomb in Anambra State. Zik’s Avenue is a Federal High Way and the Police Commissioner has no authority to block it for whatever reason. There are police office adjacent to the police commissioner’s office, behind the prisons. court road etc. but roads passing there  are not  closed. The lives of officers in the Police Commissioner’s office are not more important than those in the other police offices. Please do not act like your predecessor who probably created the impression that he might be “confronting the federal might”, a sycophantic posturing that has created agony for the people. You were elected to protect/fight for the overall interest of Ndi Anambra and you should be bold and intrepid in doing so.

(ii) Secondly, please invite the FRSC Sector Commandar in the State and request him to remove his officials off the road inside  Awka Capitals City and let them go to the major roads like Amawbia-Ekwulobia  road and Amawbia–Onitsha Express Way where drivers go on speed and enforce the necessity   for seat belt. They have no qualms to extort the cyclists and commercial tricycle operators who earn meager income to avoid social problems due to pervasive unemployment in the country.  

Mr. Onwubiko is an author and public affairs analyst, Awka, Anambra  state.