I’ve lived in Miami for almost two years. One thing that has stayed constant during this time is – ROAD CONSTRUCTION.
It’s like a competition between the roads. While we are trying to recover from one detour and enjoy the new road, someone comes and tears down another one. A lot of times, recently constructed roads are torn down and constructed AGAIN. Before I go any further, I have to state clearly ” I AM NOT COMPLAINING”.
As a Nigerian, I vividly remember the state of the roads at home. If it’s not a lake of water or a river of mud during the raining season, it’s a sea of dust during dry season. Oh, how can I forget the nightmare called ‘pot-holes’. Cars are constantly throwing dance moves on the road trying to avoid those demons. So you see, I’ll much rather be dodging nails from construction.
However, the burden of the ceaseless constructions are not necessarily easy to bear. Miami without road construction is plagued with traffic jam. Miami with construction is praying and reciting all the scriptures in your head to keep from cussing.
Then the road construction came to the solitude of my apartment. Yes! Our little street needed a touch of this makeover. It’s been a caterpillar festival! But hey, I’m still not complaining. That was until I recently spoke with a Miami native. I mentioned in passing how confusingly frequent, road constructions were in the city. Nothing prepared me for her response.
She looked at me and said “it’s CORRUPTION”. I was perplexed. She explained further that she believed contracts were constantly giving out to friends of politicians and that was why the roads were always under construction. She added, this has been going on since she was a child.
I know nothing about politics in general. I hear different opinions and theories about how things happen in that realm, very often; every body is entitled to an opinion. I don’t know that her theory is true. But her theory hit me like a brick on the center of my head. I couldn’t help but think “Why don’t we have this type of corruption in Nigeria?”
Yeah! yeah, I know ‘corruption’ is a negative word. But, I can’t help but imagine what my country will look like with this kind of corruption. Imagine with me for a few minutes.
Imagine the corruption that will make politicians give their friends contracts to BUILD roads. How about politicians who will give their friends contracts to BUILD hospitals, or PROVIDE electricity and water. The icing on the cake is that they actually carry out these contracts. If they steal while doing it, we won’t even care. We won’t even have time to be bothered.
We will be too busy dodging nails from construction, complaining about food being too frozen, water that wont stop running, and hospitals that have too much equipment.
Can we transition to this type of corruption?
We can become free from corruption later, as we keep working on it. Baby steps people!
Make It A Winning-Day
Winie