Ramat Park, Benin City: Beyond The Grandeur – Independent Newspaper Nigeria

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For years, the gridlocks have always been heart­breaking. Hours burned in immobile traffics, with sweaty bodies groaning in hope­lessness. Frustration by commut­ers often berthed on innocent victims, most often drivers whose fuel for two days were expended in a few hours, with disillusioned echoes of important appoint­ments missed, trailing unavoid­able absence from lectures, at times, even examinations, and of course flights rebook, a common feature. Welcome to Ramat Park, Benin City, once an agonizing nightmare but now an infrastruc­tural beauty, landscaping arriv­als into the ancient city of Benin from the East and the North.

The foregoing encapsulates the all-embracing picture of Ra­mat Park and its environs before the commencement of the prac­tical government of Senator Monday Okpebholo. As an Edo indigene based in Abuja, I tra­versed through it last week, and the impression struck a chord.

Skeptics like yours sincerely were unsparing prior, and at the beginning because of the fallouts of the political shenanigans that birthed the current administra­tion of Okpebholo. “Flyover in Ramat Park?” “Thoughtless”, “brain-dead”, and “unachiev­able”, bellowed the doubters. Some shouted “unschooled”, “politically impressionistic”, and “overly ambitious”, while others laughed away at the arrogantly illogical project. But, the easy-go­ing, casually enrobed, unassum­ingly focused, and native-intelli­gently challenged Governor saw tomorrow from his far-flung Udo­mi abode, a place that has today become the cynosure of hope for the hopeless.

Ramat Park is a symbol of the doable spirit that has eluded Ni­geria over the years. Yes, this has validated the fact that in spite of the challenges, a lot can be done without necessarily calling the past. Senator Monday Okpebholo was not dissuaded by the failure of the previous administrations to see the benefits of this awe­some initiative, neither was he distracted by the antics of nay­sayers. He took the plunge, dared the ghost of the past and today, the grandeur of the Ramat Park flyover, nearing the finishing line, deserves all the celebration. Welcome to the Practical Govern­ment of the silent colossus and infrastructural philosopher, our very own dear Governor of Edo State, Distinguished Senator Monday Okpebholo.

*High Chief Benson Odaman, Ph.D, a public policy analyst, writes from Abuja-FCT