Tunnel End - mending or disrupting lives?

Anybody who has been on Okpu Umuobo Road in recent time would testify that construction work has been ongoing from where other construction companies had left off work several years ago. However, if truth must be told it's not out of place to ask, is this good omen? For instance, it hasn't been a nice feast of pizza for the residents of the community where a construction company whose signage reads Tunnel End has been labouring in the past few months trying to mend our roads. 

 

Last December, just as the Yuletide was concluding, road reconstruction started on the Okpu Umuobo Road and Mgboko Road after the junction popularly called Ama Double. It took several months before a sign post was erected indicting the culprit, a company named Dawn & Daisy Integrated Services Nig. Ltd located somewhere in Umungasi as responsible for the good omen of road (re)construction and the bad omen of life disruption to people of Umuara where I'm currently resident. In saying this, I'm not oblivious of the plight of residents of Ama Double up to Mgboko, Obingwa Local Government of Abia State who used the Okpu Umuobo Road till this day and the difficulty encountered in transporting themselves, family and property from the city of Aba to the villages compromising the autonomous community. I had on Facebook posted pictures of the dilapidated road, in 2012. But in 2019, my Facebook account was hacked by one smartcruz guy, a persona non grata with a cellphone number belonging to one Frank Okoro, a resident of Owerri, Imo State. I would have shown pictures of that road at the time to you, which I took as a resident of the village and then a recent returnee from the United States of America. I had thought my world was coming to an end that year but it has tarried since. O di egwu o. Unfortunately, the kind of solace I envisaged and sought with the road reconstruction hasn't arrived even with the ongoing fast pace of the road work.

 

Just yesterday as it rained, I was dismayed by the disruption that the construction work was wrecking on the lives and property of residents of Isiala Okpu community of Osisioma Ngwa Local Government of Abia State. Unfortunately, I couldn't take pictures as my phone was without power (no thank you to Up NEPA and its constant power interruptions/failures). Perhaps I'm talking nonsense. I have known hardships most of if not all of my life but this time, Tunnel End and its partners are putting in a twist to the whole drama. For instance, many people who have had to get water out of other homes haven't had it easy since the construction work began. It's no longer easy to leave one's compound to the next as usual because gutters were built at the entrances without providing bridges into people's premises/compounds. Last December, the source of water supply to our home was terminated and I had to fetch water outside. I couldn't wheel our cart across the compound to fetch water from nearby outlets. Even Tunnel End suffered from poor water supply. They relied heavily on the borehole providers on the stretch of the road to provide its source of water for the road maintenance work. Its affiliate Rock Waters Integrated Services Limited has been on hand to provide water from the natives but that has been an interesting experiment to watch. 

It has been one trouble or the other since the work started. Firstly, the road has become impassable to pedestrians and vehicles. Red mud used in filling the road to reach the level of the gutter has made the roads impassable. I have had to use diverse means to reach my home. I've had to transverse other people's backyards drawing undue attention to myself as I wasn't always the type they would see around their area. I've had to use all sorts of means to get myself and my means to wherever I had to go. Don't even include the many wadding through muddy (and not add shitty) waters including that of yesterday (April 19, 2021) after the rains. My mother who runs a shop close to our home but comes home at night has been the worst hit. She has had to go through hardship coming home to an unpredictable road condition daily. 

Secondly, there hadn't been warning signs to the villages on where to divert. Most construction companies would have signs reading messages like:

1. Men at work
2. Stop. Danger
3. Divert here or diversion
4. Pardon our appearance
5. Thank you

Tunnel End appears to be the messiah that the residents of the community had anticipated through the Governor Victor Ikpeazu's administration but it has been quite late in coming through. I don't want to sound characteristically pessimistic as I'm often accused. I hope that I'm being realistic here and not overly whining.  Tunnel End is f#cking up my life! And they seem to be having a ball while at it. Now, if Tunnel End is doing all this work at no pay to them, should I be grateful? 

Well, let's go back to our oral history. Do you recall the tortoise in the hole? Aha! The same that got caught in a shitty hole? Well, it was said that when the tortoise fell into a hole. It took a while for help to come its way. But when the help did come, the tortoise cried out: 'Get me out of this hole. I'm dying of the shit in here!'  In complaining of the abuse of our road and the untold hardships it has brought upon the residents of Okpu Umuobo Road, should we as endure the humiliation or sue Tunnel End, shitty hole and all? 

For their bravery in coming at this very hard time to build a road, I say bravo. But for its attendant hardship I say, Tunnel End, should re-strategise. The work is making me hate my very existence. No, thank you.