By Victor Olotu, FCA
If you drive into Idoani today, you won’t need a signboard to know you have arrived at the doorstep of neglect. The road itself will tell you. You will feel the broken earth beneath your tires, the deep gullies that shake your bones, and the silence of community markets that once hummed with trade and laughter.
But Idoani’s pain is not hers alone. It is the story of an entire region — Irekari, the northern district of Ose Local Government Area of Ondo State, made up of Afo, Idogun, Imeri, and Idoani. Together, these four towns represent almost 40 percent of Ose’s population, yet they now stand like forgotten outposts, their voices faint against the noise of politics and promises that never arrive.
There was a time when Irekari was alive. A time when trailers rumbled in and out of Idoani carrying goods from Akure to Abuja. When traders from Owo and Oka filled our markets with food, fabric, and laughter. When students of Federal Government College, Idoani, proudly walked to school in crisp uniforms, their dreams clear and their future bright. It was a proud land, peaceful, hardworking, and united. The soil was rich, the farms were busy, and the people were known for honesty, learning, and enterprise.
Cradled by the rocky valleys of Ose Local Government, the Irekari communities once glowed with pride, towns where learning thrived, commerce flourished, and peace bound the people together like family. Idoani, the largest of these towns, stood as a shining beacon of education and culture. The establishment of the Federal Government College, Idoani, in February 1978, placed it firmly on Nigeria’s national map, producing generations of distinguished citizens who went on to become judges, professors, military officers, engineers, and business leaders across the world. Then the road died. And with it, everything began to fade.
The Federal Ipele–Idoani–Isua Road and the Oba–Ikun–Afo Road, once the arteries of our existence, have collapsed into ruins. The roads that once carried hope now carry despair. Deep gullies swallow trucks. Bridges have fallen. Erosion has eaten the shoulders of the road.
A journey that should take 30 minutes now takes three hours, if it can be made at all. During the rainy season, the roads become rivers of red mud, and even motorcycles turn back.
I have watched buses turn away at Oba because drivers are too afraid to continue. I have seen farmers abandon their harvest because no vehicle will risk the trip. I have seen pregnant women carried on makeshift wheelbarrows because ambulances can’t pass.
What killed Irekari was not war. It was neglect, slow, consistent, and deadly.
The collapse of the road destroyed our economy, but worse, it broke our spirit.
The First Bank branch in Idoani, once the heartbeat of business life, was closed after a deadly robbery years ago. It has never reopened till date. No other bank came. Now, traders travel to Owo or Ifon just to deposit or withdraw money, sometimes spending a full day and nearly half their earnings just to access cash. Small businesses have vanished. Market days that once filled the streets are now quiet. Goods rot in farms and stores. Youths have fled, to Akure, to Lagos, to anywhere that offers a little glimpse of hope.
Those who remain now struggle daily just to survive. Transporters charge triple the normal fare. Farmers watch helplessly as their crops rot by the roadside. Teachers buy their own chalk to keep classes going. Public workers plead for transfers to safer, more accessible towns. Even government offices now stand as half-empty shells of what they once were.
Every family carries a story of loss, not to death, but to departure. The old remain, the young are gone, and with each passing day, the silence in our community grows heavier, echoing the pain of a people forgotten.
There was a time when the Idoani General Hospital served all of Irekari. It was our pride, a place of healing. Today, the wards are dark and empty. The building is still there, but it breathes no life. No doctors. No equipment. No light.
In recent months, we have buried women who died in labour, not because help didn’t exist, but because help could not reach them. The road that once led to safety has become a road to sorrow.
The Magistrate Court, originally established to serve the entire district, had long been a shadow of itself even before it was eventually relocated to Oba due to inaccessibility. Across the towns, schools are dilapidated, teachers buy their own chalk, and classrooms leak when it rains. Electricity supply is unreliable, water is scarce, and public workers constantly seek transfers to safer and more accessible areas. Every institution that once symbolized progress now tells the story of a slow retreat.
It is easy to forget a place you no longer see. That is what has happened to Irekari.
Politicians come only during elections. They make promises under canopies, then vanish as soon as the last vote is counted. The rest of the time, our district does not exist in their plans.
The Irekari LCDA, created with hope of bringing development closer, was recently excluded from the state’s Operation Emergency Road Construction Programme. Imagine that, a region that can barely breathe left out of a programme meant to save dying communities. Even civil servants posted here reject the posting or beg for transfers after a few months. The message is clear: we are alone.
Recently, the Irekari Youths took to the streets in peaceful protest, young men and women from Idoani, Afo, Imeri and Idogun. They carried placards that said it all:
“Fix our roads, save our lives.”
“We are Nigerians too.”
Their voices were not angry, they were desperate. They spoke of daily accidents, damaged vehicles, lost jobs, and hopelessness. They questioned why a marble company in Afo, whose heavy trucks destroy the same roads, has not been made to contribute meaningfully to local infrastructure.
Their protest was not rebellion; it was survival, the last act of people refusing to vanish quietly.
Irekari is dying in slow motion. Every day that the government looks away, a part of our humanity erodes. Farmers lose income. Children lose schools. Businesses lose customers. Patients lose life. Hope loses meaning.
This is how extinction begins, not by fire, not by war, but by silence.
And yet, in that silence, we still believe. We still plant. We still teach. We still wait for the sound of bulldozers, the hum of construction, the return of light and life to our communities.
As an entrepreneur running an SME in Idoani, myself, I have personally experienced the harsh economic toll of our deteriorating infrastructure, especially the Oba-Ikun road. My business, like many others, has suffered from dwindling patronage as customers from neighbouring towns now find it difficult, sometimes impossible, to reach us. The cost of logistics and supplies has more than tripled, and in several instances, we have lost goods entirely when our trucks break down or get trapped on the impassable road. What was once a thriving hub of trade and enterprise has now turned into a daily struggle for survival.
Having had the privilege of serving as Chairman of Ose Local Government between 2013 and 2015, I understand firsthand the transformative power of infrastructure. A single good road can breathe life into a community, stimulating commerce, attracting investment, and restoring hope. Development begins with access; without it, even the best policies and intentions are crippled before they can take effect.
This is not just about Idoani or Irekari, it is about justice, inclusion, and nation-building.
A government that forgets 40 percent of a local government forgets the soul of its people.
So I appeal, with all humility, to the Federal Government of Nigeria, the Federal Ministry of Works, FERMA, and to our own Governor, Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa: please, let this not be another story filed under “neglect.”
Rebuild the Oba–Ikun–Afo Road.
Reconstruct the Ipele–Idoani–Isua Road.
Let electricity return. Let the hospitals breathe. Let the schools come alive.
We do not ask for pity — only for connection.
We do not seek charity — only justice.
Let history remember your administration as the one that restored life to a forgotten region.
Let Idoani live again.
Let Irekari rise again.
Let the road to hope be reopened.
Victor Olotu, FCA — writes from Lagos
📧 olotuvictor@gmail.com
