Special Report: Atop treacherous Kwara road plunging residents into woes after decades of neglect

“When will this be over? How can a road be so bad like this? Are we really going to endure this forever? What is the government doing,” those were the words of Babatunde Basheerat, a food vendor at Medina, Ilorin South Local Government Area of Kwara State, as she once again navigates the treacherous roads.

On a Tuesday in March 2025—the morning sunlight is lethargic, casting a shadow on the floodplain–eroded road in Medina community. Basheerat, a mother of five, dodged the potholes while leading her four children to navigate on foot, as she hovered with a cooler of food on her head, and a child strapped to her back.

Waking up early at dawn has become a routine for Basheerat. This is to meet the demand of her customers who eat at her cafeteria before setting out for their daily businesses. Instead, the deteriorating road always pushed her efforts to near waste, as getting commercial transportation in the area had become very difficult.

Sometimes if she is lucky, she hovers herself and the children on a motorcycle, risking their safety —because watching her children being late to school, while losing her customers to another vendor is something she can not bear, and must try to avoid.

Recounting an experience that once confined her to her home, Basheerat explained how she stayed jobless despite her children’s huge financial burdens. On that day, she said, the motor cyclist conveying them to her shop at Medina hit a deep pothole, and everyone landed on the ground, including her cooler of food worth thousands of Naira.

“My children and I were severely injured. But thank God that the incident did not claim our lives. Since that time, my husband has not allowed me to go to the area and run my business again.”

Basheerat’s plight mirrored the struggles of thousands of people in the Medina community. Abdulkareem Isiaka, a roadside vulcanizer, also shared his experience with this reporter. “You see these tyres I’m working on, they got damaged while the drivers were dodging the potholes.”

Realizing the danger of the poor condition of the road, Isiaka solicited prompt intervention from the government, saying “the number of accidents that are occurring here, everyday, can not be counted.”

Surface of the Dilapidated road in Medina Photo: Aliyu Adam

Surface of the Dilapidated road in Medina

 Photo:  Aliyu Adam

Damage Beyond Bodily Injuries  

According to Isiaka, the deteriorating road condition goes beyond physical threat for residents. The 46–year–old narrated that several filling stations have evacuated the area, after their efforts to maintain the road proved unhelpful. The closure of the filling stations has thrown the community into economic handicap, as other merchants and petty traders also fled the neighborhood.

Before he can get supplies that would aid his work, Isiaka narrated, he treks a distance of about ten kilometers outside the neighborhood, since the condition of the road has caused unavailability of commercial transporters around the area.

“Everytime, I always watch people walking in desperation to the town due to the scarcity of transportation. It is common to hear people on telephone conversations requesting their colleagues to sign for them when they are late for work.”

For Basheerat, it took the emergence of economic pressure before she resumed her business. She now only enjoys intermittent comfortable transit whenever her husband is available to convey them to the shop.

The travails of the community represents the systematic failure of many societies in Nigeria. Poor road conditions have induced a heavy financial burden on transport operators, which have drastically strained their operations and profitability, causing prolonged travel hours while taking a toll on vehicle maintenance and longevity.

A visit to the community in November last year, and again in February, April and September of 2025, still showed that the road in its neglected, poor and deteriorating condition. Littered with potholes, and overgrown weeds, an absence of a drainage systems has given erosion an opportunity to ravage the manageable areas of the road.

Surface of the Dilapidated road in Medina.
Photo credit: Aliyu Adam

Nigeria has the largest, but also some of the worst-maintained road networks in the West Africa region, with approximately 108,000km of surfaced roads. Despite substantial yearly budgets dedicated to road construction and maintenance, the country has continued to face persistent gaps in the quality and quantity of its road infrastructure.

A study by SB Morgen Intelligence (SBM), identified poor infrastructure among the major challenges that makes road travels unsafe for operators and passengers alike in Nigeria. The actual travel times on Nigerian roads are significantly longer than estimated due to recurrent delay caused by the poor road conditions.

The deteriorating condition of roads in Nigeria had triggered a significant strain on the country’s economy, costing billions of Naira to be lost in productivity and resources every year—and claiming countless lives in preventable accidents.

Transporters Share Woes

Olele Kazeem, a motorcyclist, was pushing his bike after a breakdown, as he navigated the treacherous road. That was the fourth time the bike man will be visiting a vulcanizer that day. Putting on a masquerade face, Kazeem expressed his worriness, as he had become a regular visitor to the vulcanizer’s workshop.

He pointed to tyres’ blown–out and engine damage as the nightmare of the bumpy route for transporters, flagging the road as “the worst in Kwara State”.

Kazeem pleaded with the government to embark on swift action in rejuvenating the road, noting that “reviving the road is the only way to help us escape this burden.”

Abdullahi Oluwatoyin, a tricycle operator, lamented the impact of the road on his business, as he delved into how he was constantly involved in disagreements with his customers who complained of the exorbitant fare charged.

The uneven surface of the road in Medina  Photo: Aliyu Adam

“They all know the dangers of the road, but people still complain about the transportation fee. Even the fare we charge is not enough to cover the cost of repairs. Many of us have been held up at mechanic workshops.”

With everything becoming more expensive in Nigeria, the price of a tricycle (Keke Napep) has now soared to N3.5 million, and mechanics have increased their service’s charges. Therefore, Oluwatoyin lamented that he barely made profits despite the life-threatening exercises he always invested in the work.

When It Rains, It Pours

Sometime around April 2025. Abdulfatai Yakubu, 45, sat at the entrance of his house, as he scanned the road, hoping for a free ride that would convey him to town. When hours passed without traces of any transport operator, Yakubu set out on foot to a neighboring road, where he hoped to get an immediate transit.

After finishing his business in town, Yakubu suffered a similar fate when he decided to return home. The few transporters he managed to stop sang the same song. The deteriorating condition of the road has constantly damaged their tricycles, putting them in financial disadvantage, hence they’re boycotting the area.

He was compelled to choose between uncomfortable choices: either to settle for an expensive halfway ride, or trek all the way home. During an interview in April, Yakubu recalled that the road was left in that poor condition for over a decade. He mentioned the poor drainage system as the major factor that worsened the road to that state.

“When we are visited by emergency conditions, especially when our pregnant women are due for labor, we find it very difficult to see a vehicle to convey us to hospital,” Abdullahi Olarewaju, a welder who abandoned his casual skills for riding motorcycle, bemoaned the government’s indifference to the road.

Due to the absence of drainage which prevents free flow of water whenever there’s a downpour, erosion has deepened some areas that were once graveled some years ago. “Whenever it rains, it pours,” Olarewaju wailed with a faint voice.

Part of the filapidated road in Medina after a slight downpour Photo: Aliyu Adam

Scary Data, Damning Damage

Despite multibillion naira budgets, road transit continues to be a crisis in Nigeria. Over 50–percent of road projects funded between 2015 and 2022 were either abandoned or under-delivered. Mouthwatering amounts were budgeted for these roads, as revealed by a report by BudgIT Nigeria.

In 2022, the World Bank reported that Nigeria lost about $1 Billion annually to poor road infrastructure. This included losses from elongated travel periods, higher vehicle operating cost, and goods damaged in transit.

The United Nations Development Programme and World Bank (WB) also reported that Nigeria has the lowest records of economic development because of its poor transportation infrastructure.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the African region had the highest rate of fatalities from road traffic injuries worldwide, at 26.6 per 100,000 population in 2013. Over 85–percent of all deaths and 90–percent of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) suffered from road traffic injuries occurred in low and middle-income countries, which have only 47–percent of the world’s registered vehicles.

Nigeria ranked first in Africa with the worst, unmotorable road networks, capping it with the highest number of accidents and deaths.

The surface of the Dilapidated road in Medina marred with grown weeds. Photo: Aliyu Adam

Efforts

Several efforts to speak with Kwara State authorities proved abortive.

This reporter severally visited the office of Ilorin South Local Government Chairman, Honorable Majeed Nuhu Podo, but his secretary always said he was not around.

Several calls put through to the phone contact provided by the Secretary went unanswered. WhatsApp messages and SMS sent were also not replied, despite several reminders.

By: Aliyu Adam

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