New York, Tues. February 19, 2008 --- News-reports coming out of Nigeria indicate that The Director of Army Public Relations, Brigadier-General Solomon Giwa-Amu has died in an automobile accident on early morning of Monday February 18, 2008.

A statement on behalf of Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Luka Yusuf by Lt.-Col. Muhammed M. Yerima of the Nigerian Army Headquarters, Abuja, said that Giwa-Amu “died from injuries sustained following a road traffic accident.

The accident occurred while the Brigadier-General and Army Spokesman was traveling on Abuja-Kaduna highways in company with five other soldiers from Abuja to the Command and Staff College, Jaji, Kaduna State. The other officers traveling with him in an Army Toyota Hiace bus also sustained injuries and were being treated at the emergency units of the hospital. The Army general was going to deliver a lecture, according to reports.

Giwa-Amu was a former ADC to President Olusegun Obasanjo from 1999 to 2003. After serving as Obasanjo’s ADC, Giwa-Amu was posted as Nigerian Military Attache (Defence Adviser to the United Nations) in New York, United States of America. Following the completion of his tour of duty in the United Nations, he was redeployed to the Nigerian Army Headquarters as the Director of Army Public Relations in August 2007. He was promoted to Brigadier-General in December 2007.

In a related development, the deplorable state of the nation’s roads has claimed the life of the Registrar of Delta State University, Abraka, Mr. Andrew Onoyemakonor.

Onoyemakonor died in auto crash which occurred between the university town and the neighbouring Obiaroko, the headquarters of Ukwuani Local Government Area of Delta State.

News reports revealed that Onoyemakonor was returning to Abraka from Obiaroko, where he held a church programme in company with his wife, before his tragic end.

Reports indicate that tragedy struck when the driver of Onoyemakonor’s official car, marked DT 156 AO6, in desperation to avoid a pot hole on the Agbor\Warri Road, skidded off his lane.

Onoyemakonor’s Peugeot Saloon car collided with a 190 Mercedes Benz, marked AH 751 FER, coming at top speed from the opposite direction.

The university registrar died on the way to Eku Baptist Hospital and his remains were later deposited in the morgue of the medical centre.

His wife and driver as well as the driver of the ill-fated 190 Mercedes Benz car were, however, lucky as they merely sustained injuries.

Nigeria made a lot of revenue in its huge oil deposit, but its leaders were so corrupt that they embezzled, siphoned and mismanaged the public fund leaving the public infrastructures, including local, state and federal highways in total disrepair and decay.

The infrastructural decay that started with the Army rule in Nigerian from 1966 continued within the very short time civilians ruled the African nation. Olusegun Obasanjo’s second coming to power from 1999 to 2007 had witnessed unprecedented corruption and mismanagement, and hence continued infrastructural decay.

Funds repeatedly ear-marked for road repairs which were repeatedly never executed nor accounted for; from the time of the Army rule, including period Army General Olusegun Obasanjo ruled Nigeria (1975 to 1979), to the time civilian President Olusegun Obasanjo again ruled Nigeria (from May 1999 to May 2007).

Poor Nigerian road commuters have been dying daily in tens and hundreds due to mishaps associated with very bad roads. However, very prominent Nigeria leaders, including late Major-General Abdulkarim Adisa, former Federal Minster of Works and Housing had died due to the same cause, as well.

The fatal auto-crash that took the life of the Army General, it would be recalled occurred at a spot along the Ilorin Omu-Aran federal highway in February 2005 on his way from a ceremony at Iya-Gbede, the country home of former Police Affairs Minister, Major-General David Jemibewon in Ijumu local government area of Kogi state.

On a hopeful note, the current Nigeria helmsman, President Umaru Yar’Adua while tagging himself a ‘Servant-Leader’ has promised and appear determined to restructure Nigeria and put a stop to out-of-control corruption in the nation.

While the full detail of how the accident which claimed the life of the very prominent officer took place is unknown at the moment; however, what is known is that the poor masses and elite government officials alike agree and have many times referred to Nigerian roads as death-traps.

Nigeria leaders may be discovering very tragically though, that bad roads are equal opportunity cause of untimely death, and may hence choose to correct the situation.