Offoaro - Poet without Borders


Warning Mr. President! Owerri Airport is a very dangerous place for you to land at night or when visibility is fuzzy. It has no landing lights - that type you see at ordinary aerodromes all over civilized world.
Wednesday, February 25, 2004



Godson Offoaro

ANNOUNCE THIS ARTICLE TO YOUR FRIENDS
OBJ: FLYING OR DRIVING TO AVUTU? - (Concluded)



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ly I am sure Mr. President will do to Owerri. Warning Mr. President! Owerri Airport is a very dangerous place for you to land at night or when visibility is fuzzy. It has no landing lights - that type you see at ordinary aerodromes all over civilized world. Mr. President I am not exaggerating. Except if your air craft is equipped with extra-sensory navigational facilities that will lead it land to land anywhere near impossible as the Owerri airport. Instrument Landing System (ILS) facilities are not there at Owerri airport. You can ask Femi Fani-Kayode to phone Kema Chikwe and ask her. Mr. President, even if you decide to land at the near-by Port Harcourt International, which is safer, it will not solve the problem. The federal road from PH airport to Owerri is in a terrible mess. Though a sizeable chunk of that road is in Rivers state - the neglected oil producing state of, Nigeria, - it still leads to Imo state, the Igbo heartland. How are you going to handle this, Mr. Prez?

Mr. Prez do you still remember Rivers state? That same state from where you thirty-something years ago, launched the last but most decisive push that saw the capitulation of your once mortal enemies - the Biafrans? That state where oil exploration and exploitation began many decades ago for Nigeria. That area of the country which regrettably has more ugly and ill-maintained roads than any other part of Nigeria! I'm still talking of Rivers State. I hear Rivers state is being punished because of its contiguous relationship with Imo and also because its present guv is believed to be Igbo. This digression is really getting out of hand.

Unless you asked your brother, Minister Ogunlewe to begin a very big face-lift right away, you may not enjoy your drive Mr. Prez. Or there is a helicopter waiting at the presidential wing of PH airport to sprint you into Owerri. You will ride on pot-hole-ridden-road that will, (no matter the type of vehicle you're driven in), be a great disservice to your aging nerves. I am, honestly and very genuinely worried for you, Mr. Prez. My C-in-C.

I was thinking aloud when suddenly I remembered that there could be alternative routes! For example, Mr. Prez, you may decide to do the impossible and take the Abuja, Keffi-Nasarawa-Makurdi-Otukpo-Enugu-Okigwe-Umuahia Road. Your journey will, for sure be smooth until you begin to enter 9th Mile corner near Enugu. From there, the road becomes impassable and pothole-ridden once more. This will include the so-called Enugu-Port Harcourt express road. But if you're able to endure (I am sure because of your soldiering attribute), please remember to turn right onto another federal road at the Umuahia junction. Then remember to tell your pilot to, make another quick left turn. Dee Sam Mbakwe's house is a stone throw away from thither! If you decide to take this route, then you must leave Abuja a day or two earlier. Roads in Igbo land in case you have not been told are stone-age in nature.

Let me quickly correct myself, Mr. Prez, lest I get into your bad book. That road will hurt your over-worked/ailing body and if madam is coming with you, surely will not have the patience to go through such a living hell while still on this presidential, earth with you. She may have done it for you in the past. Do not stretch your luck, Mr. Prez. It is just an honest advice - coming from one of your most ardent admirers.

But wait a minute Mr. Prez. In the wilderness of my imagination I have remembered that, you could, being a thorough-bred military tactician decide to come into Owerri (un-announced of course) through the most unthinkable and unexpected route. Remember the element of surprise in military strategy? I am talking about the Lagos-Benin-Onitsha-Owerri Road. You could go through that route. No doubt you will enjoy your journey from Lagos to Benin and even from Benin to Onitsha. What of the Onitsha-Owerri Road. Do you still remember that road? The one you flagged off its reconstruction/dualization many, many months ago, just in time for the (s)elections of 4/19?

I am now backing off from that suggestion too. Only if Senator Ogunlewe wants to lose his job would he allow such a suggestion to cross his workaholic mind. So Mr. Prez, it will be in your and our collective interest if you avoided that route completely no matter how much any body tried to convince you to the contrary. Do not try it. Do not take the Onitsha Owerri Road to Owerri. That road , to say the least, e no good, at all, Mr. Prez.

Nigerians are always good at praising the good works good men did after their demise. Mr. Prez, no matter how much you loved Dee Sam Mbakwe and Igbo people, you may consider it prudent not to go to Avutu. There is no way you could go without driving on those type roads you are not accustomed to. Instead, I humbly suggest that you ask your deputy Mr. (sorry) Alhaji A. Atiku to go and represent you. After all, that's what vice-presidents are good for (representing their bosses at funeral ceremonies), the world over. Can I go to bed, now Mr. Prez? Honestly I have not slept for days since I heard you will be going to Avutu. I do not want history to record it for you that something unfortunate happened to the Peoples president while on a driving or flying trip to his beloved Igbo hinterland. God bless you Mr. Prez. Long Live Mr. Prez and Long live Nigeria. I am one of your humble fanatics.