Bad Road Drives Customers Away From Arepo Businesses

(Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun. Photo by Punch News)

A road called Pipeline Road in Arepo, Ogun State, is in very bad condition and it is hurting the people who run small businesses there.

The traders and people who work there say the bad road is driving away their customers and making them lose money.

The road is very difficult to drive on, especially after it rains. When rain falls, the road becomes muddy and full of water.

People have to place rocks in the mud to make the road passable.

Motorists do not like driving through the area, so they use other roads to go shopping instead.

A woman who has been selling foodstuff there for more than 11 years said the bad road has hurt her business.

She said people prefer to use better roads like Journalists Estate Road to buy things because that road is in better condition.

She also said when it rains, water floods the road and she cannot even set up her coal pot to cook and sell food.

Another trader named Ruth Iwegbu who sells shoes has been in the area for 13 years. She said the bad road makes people not want to come to her shop.

She said she has invited people she knows to buy her goods, but they do not want to come because the road is too bad.

A cobbler named Ola who has been working there since 2008 said during the rainy season, customers complain about driving into the area.

He said some customers have even asked him to come to their houses to fix their shoes instead of them coming to him.

A tailor named Olamide said too much dust from the bad road gets on her goods.

She said the dust and bad road make it hard for customers to reach her shop.

A barber named Iyanu said some customers have to park their cars far away and walk to his shop because they cannot drive all the way there.

The business owners said the road has been bad for four to five years or longer.

They said that before, the community used to come together in December every year to fix the road themselves.

But this stopped about two years ago.

One business owner said the government fixed the main road but has not helped fix this smaller road.

One person said when the community tried to fix the road before, they stopped because there is a pipeline buried under it and they needed approval from the oil company that owns the pipeline.

The community chairman said the local development associations have spent a lot of money trying to fix the road with temporary repairs.

But every time it rains, the repairs wash away.

He said the Federal Ministry of Works started putting interlocking stones on the road, but the work stopped after about 300 metres because they needed approval from the national oil company before they could use heavy machines to dig because of the pipelines.

The business owners are asking the government to please fix the road properly.

They said if the road is fixed, more customers will come and their businesses will do better.

They said the government can either tar the road or use interlocking stones, just so long as the road is made passable.