An Investigative Journey into the Deplorable Arigidi–Ikaram Highway
By Jimoh Ahmed
On a good day, the journey from Arigidi to Ikaram should take barely fifteen minutes. But these days, that same stretch feels endless — a slow, nerve-wracking crawl through mud, craters, and despair. The once-busy road, which used to hum with the rhythm of trade, laughter, and honking vehicles, has become a graveyard of abandoned cars, broken shock absorbers, and lost hopes.
The first sight that greets a traveller is not the welcoming signboard of Ikaram but the gaping mouths of potholes, wide enough to swallow small vehicles. From Arigidi Junction to the old Catholic Church, the road looks like an open wound on the landscape. Some portions are so bad that drivers steer into the bush to avoid falling into holes. Each rainfall deepens the scars. Each dry season coats the air in dust so thick it blinds the driver.
“Every week, we lose people here,” says Adebayo, a commercial driver who has plied this route for over fifteen years. His eyes are weary, his tone resigned. “This morning, another vehicle somersaulted because of a bad portion near Ajowa. We are tired of promises that never become action.”
He is not exaggerating. The Arigidi–Ikaram road, part of the larger corridor that links Ondo to Kogi and Abuja, has been in steady decline for nearly two decades. It is the main route for farmers hauling yams, cassava, and cocoa to market, for students commuting to schools in Ikare or Akungba, for traders heading to Lagos and Abuja. But now, most of those who can avoid it do. The road is a deathtrap — and everyone in Akoko North-West knows it.
The decay began slowly. A patch of asphalt peeled off here, a small pothole opened there. When the first rain came, it grew. Then another rainy season washed away what was left of the surface. Before long, what was once a motorable road became a series of ponds and trenches. Residents remember when contractors arrived in 2010, made a show of grading a few sections, and vanished. Since then, the story has been one of silence, excuses, and dashed expectations.
“Fifteen years of abandonment is wickedness,” fumes Mrs. Yetunde Ogunleye, a tomato trader in Ikaram. She used to send her goods to Owo twice a week, but now she goes only once. “The transport fare keeps going up, and sometimes my tomatoes spoil before reaching the market. The road has destroyed our business and our lives.”
The bad road has done more than ruin businesses — it has broken spirits. Buses overturn when trying to dodge deep potholes. Motorcyclists skid off the road at night. Farmers lose produce, students miss classes, and ambulances carrying patients to Ikare hospitals are often forced to turn back.
Pastor Ojo, who pastors a church in Ikaram, says even worship has been affected. “Many of our members from Ajowa stopped attending midweek services. They say they can’t risk that road at night anymore. We now do burials in the afternoon because it’s too dangerous after sunset.”
The people’s patience finally broke in August 2025. For two days, youths and community leaders blocked the Arigidi–Ikaram highway with logs, burning tyres, and placards. “No road, no peace,” one read. “Fifteen years of suffering must end,” said another. The protest halted traffic from Kogi and Abuja and forced the state’s attention — at least for a moment.
“We have begged, we have written letters,” shouted one youth leader through a megaphone. “Now we are shouting because nobody listens when we whisper.”
Officials from the Ondo State Ministry of Works visited and promised that rehabilitation would begin “as soon as the weather permits.” But the rains have gone, and the road remains as it was — a skeleton of what it used to be.
No one seems to know who truly owns the responsibility for fixing the road. The state government says it is a federal highway; the Federal Ministry of Works insists the state was “handed over” some sections. The result is a tragic tug-of-war in which bureaucracy wins and citizens lose.
“We don’t care whether it is state or federal,” says Pa Jamiu Akande, a retired headmaster in Arigidi. “All we know is that people are dying here, and nobody is doing anything.”
Local journalists who visited the site found wrecked vehicles, missing drainage, and collapsed culverts. Mechanics in Arigidi confirmed that most of their income now comes from repairing damaged suspensions and wheel alignments caused by the road. A few roadside food vendors even admit that their small profits come from drivers waiting for hours to navigate the muddy sections.
Yet the funds to fix the road are not entirely missing. Federal budgets over the years have listed allocations for the Ajowa–Ikare road, which includes the Arigidi–Ikaram axis. Contractors have been “mobilized” in name, but work never continues. Residents have grown cynical. They have seen bulldozers appear just before elections, level a few heaps of laterite, and disappear once the votes are counted.
Experts say the road’s failure goes beyond neglect — it is the product of poor engineering and lack of accountability. “You can’t fill deep potholes with laterite and expect it to last,” says Engineer Sunday Adeyemi, a civil engineer based in Akure. “Without proper drainage and compaction, the first rain will wash everything away. What we need is full reconstruction, not patching.”
But reconstruction costs money, and transparency is scarce. Estimates suggest that a durable rebuild of the 23-kilometre stretch could cost between ₦2 billion and ₦5 billion. That figure sounds large — until one considers the cost of lives and livelihoods already lost. The road’s collapse has cut off farm produce worth millions of naira each year, raised transport fares by over 60 percent, and left many households poorer than ever.
Still, amid the despair, the people remain resilient. They keep speaking out, writing petitions, recording videos, and sharing them online. They are determined not to be forgotten.
> “Infrastructure is not charity,” says Adebayo, leaning on his dusty bus. “It’s our right as citizens. We pay taxes. We vote. We deserve a good road.”
Standing by the side of the road near Ikaram one evening, I watched a group of young men push a stalled minibus through a pool of brown water. The passengers, mostly women returning from the market, stepped barefoot into the mud to help. One of them slipped, got up laughing, and said, “This is not a road; it’s a river.” Everyone laughed — but it was the kind of laughter that hides pain.
In that moment, it was clear that this road is more than asphalt and gravel. It is the symbol of how neglect corrodes a nation — quietly, daily, until people no longer expect help.
For the people of Arigidi and Ikaram, the road is both a memory and a metaphor: a road that once led to opportunity, now leading to nowhere. And unless those in power act with urgency and sincerity, it will remain exactly that — a road that eats its travellers.
