The end of another year is here and it’s time to thank God Almighty for seeing us this far. The edition of the magazine in your hand is also the last that will bear the 2009 date. God has been so good to us here and, we believe, to you out there too. That’s why you are still there and still reading this magazine. It may be true that things did not quite work out well the way you would have wanted, but don’t forget that it could have been worse. It was worse for some people. So it’s time to say “thank you” to our creator and to pray for a better 2010.

For those of you who are travelling out of your towns and cities of residence for the Christmas and New Year holidays, well, the news is not so cheering. The nation’s roads are in very terrible situation. The nation’s transport system has progressively declined over the decades. Water transportation is almost non-existent here. The situation may change after the ongoing dredging of River Niger is completed. Nobody talks about the rail system anymore. It has collapsed and there are no visible efforts to revive it. Air transportation is still battling all the odds against its survival. The joy of it is that it is still there. But it is not a mass system because of the cost.

What all these suggest is that most Nigerians have to depend on the roads to get to where they want to go. There is, therefore, heavy traffic on the roads. Heavy duty vehicles carrying heavy loads compete with the small and medium size passenger vehicles for the use of the roads. The result is the frequent carnage we see on the roads. Another is that the lifespans of these roads are adversely affected.

Today, most Nigerian roads are in terrible state of disrepair. The nation has spent trillions of Naira on them, yet they are not better.

Our cover story this week is on the sorry state of Nigerian roads. Our team of reporters visited most of the roads that have been awarded for reconstruction in the past 10 years and their reports show that despite the huge government spending on these projects, the situation has not changed for the better. The story, titled: Roads to Hell, was written by Chris Ajaero, assistant general editor.