Plying from Nnewi to Okigwe is like a journey to hell, while travellers from Onitsha to Enugu should constantly recite Psalm 23 until they enter Holy Ghost motorpark in Enugu town.

In fact, when Metroview learnt that both the state and federal legislators from God’s own state, Abia State went, on hunger strike to register their annoyance and frustration over the deplorable condition of South East road, the conclusion was that it was a protest in the right direction which came at the moment where travelling to the South East is now more than a nightmare. Even the Aba-Ikot Ekpene-Uyo road is not left out. At a particular junction along the Aba-Ikot Ekpene road, villagers living near the highway make robust living by ferrying passenger on their back to dry land, meandering through deep flood, which sometimes got above the navel of a 1.56 metres tall man.

A colleague of ours based in Lagos, who is due to wed very soon in Owerri distributed his wedding invitation to his colleagues in Lagos. Surprisingly, some of them told him outrightly that coming to the South East is dangerous because of the bad roads and instead offered to organise themselves and present something tangible to their friend.

Honestly, the above scenario is what travellers experience on most major roads that pass through the entire South East of Nigeria. The other time, a regular traveller Mr. Chika Ukem told Metroview that the eastern bad roads is taking toll on many businessmen who ply between Lagos and the South East states to transact business. According to Mr. Ikem "when you spend between five to seven hours to reach Onitsha from Lagos, you now spend between three-three and half hours to get to Oraifitte from Onitsha head bridge, a distance of not more than 15 kilometres, because of the near impassable nature of the Upper Iweka road. In fact, the vehicles that pass through these bad roads literally swim across like frustrated fishes."

Back to our warning, which must be taken very serious. Any young man who loves his pregnant wife should shield her from plying Onitsha-Owerri expressway in particular because if the heavy wife makes the journey under the stress associated with the collapsed highway, they are likely to lose the baby if care is not taken from the Onitsha end, the gully is so frightening that first time travellers are scared when plying the road. There are deep gullies by the sides which dwarfs the little effort being made by Consolidated Construction Company (CCC), the company that is dualising the Onitsha-Owerri highway. Throughout your trip from Onitsha to Owerri, travellers keep experiencing tumbling effects inside their vehicles with container carrying trailers falling on smaller vehicles and killing occupants sometimes.

Mr. Caleb Onwuka who lost an uncle and his wife when a trailer carrying a container fell on them described the pathetic situation thus: "Honestly, I don’t know what the Igbos did to deserve this kind of treatment. Just look at things generally, it is the worst thing that are given to Ndigbo in Nigeria even when you see the toll gates in other parts of Nigeria, they are strong but at Asaba and Aba, the moment it starts raining, the toll collectors will be hiding inside their licking roof. Look at how my dear uncle and his lovely wife were killed inside their Mercedez Ben car by a container carrying trailer. What sin have we committed in this country."

Another user of this road Miss Ngozi Chikere lamented that "I was born in the north, I schooled in the West but I have never seen roads as bad as those in the east. Honestly, I know of an Anglican priest whose wife uses this Onitsha-Owerri road axis regularly because of her work. She lost the baby through a very painful miscarriage because of this bad road."

On Sunday August 24, 2003 the Imo State Governor Chief Achike Udenwa and his wife went to Oguta to be initiated into two highly respected societies in the Lake town. Observers said that when the governor’s entourage got to the Irete-Orogwe-Ogbaku axis of the Onitsha-Owerri highway, despite all the siren blaring vehicles and the stern looking armed policemen and other security operatives that were with the governor, his convoy had to obey the law of bad roads which state that "Thou shall not move beyond one kilometre per hour whenever you are passing through me. All the efforts of the escort to clear the road for His Excellency to pass through came to nothing as other road users were also trying to meander their way through the messy road which is fast degenerating into a pond. People then used the opportunity to inform the governor to tell Abuja to hasten the dualisation of the Onitsha-Owerri highway so that the nightmare which they experience on that orad will be a thing of the past. However some regular users are of the opinion that what any user of these roads require is regular prayer for as one of them Mr. Innocent Nwadike puts it "The Onitsha-Owerri road remains the easiest way to the grave. If one escape road accident, robbers are cashing in on the bad roads to rob commuters on daily basis, maiming and sometimes killing road users."