The 2024 rainy season is inching closer. Meanwhile it is trite that roads are easier and better to construct, reconstruct or rehabilitate during the dry season.
Government often use the rainy season as an excuse for not fixing bad roads.
Government’s usual excuse is that rains hinder contractors from carrying out their
work.
However, experience has shown that oftentimes when the dry season sets in around November through April or May of the following year, the same government may not swing into action promptly, in order to fix the bad roads
Many of the roads in rural communities in Imo state need serious attention. While people may be managing them during the subsisting dry season, it is trite that they would become near-impassable as well as a hellish experience driving through when the rains fully return in a few months ahead.
This therefore, underscores the need for government to expedite action on these roads between now and a couple of months away when the rains are expected to become heavier.
The Imo Rural Roads Maintenance Agency, IRROMA, has a crucial role to play in this regard. The local governments should also embark on aggressive grading of roads in the communities atleast to ensure that they remain motorable.
And given also the fact that the absence of drainages contribute to the collapse of most roads including asphalted ones,
Imo government even the local governments should prioritise the issue of erosion control by constructing drainages along erosion-prone sections of many of the rural roads. This will ensure that the roads are motorable irrespective of whether they are asphalted or not.A stitch in time,as is often said, saves nine.
