Are you an Aro man, woman, or leader? Do you know where the Post Office is located in your town of Arochukwu – and when did you visit it last?
Yes; the answer to the above questions will surely lead you to see the sorry state of the only Post Office ‘the colonial masters had built in the ancient town of Arochukwu decides ago.’ Each time I visit the Post Office in Arochukwu as an Aro man, or go near it, I tend to conclude that we are a careless group of human beings who do not care for what we have; careless people who may hate good things, after all! I may be wrong here; but my heart bleaks whenever I remember the sorry state of the only PO the colonial masters had built and bequeathed to the town of Arochukwu. The PO has been the way it is now all through my primary school days in arochukwu (since after the civil war!)
In those days, PO’s served as the ‘link shop’ between the people and the government. For any town to merit a PO, it meant that the town must have met all the criteria of a full-fledged town. So was Arochukwu – an ancient town that had produced, perhaps, one of the first PO’s in the whole of what is today referred as Old Bende. But since its construction, the PO has remained in the way it was constructed – more than fifty years ago – with nothing added to it! yes; nothing has been added to it in terms of renovation and structural expansion. Nothing really!
The roofs are daily caving in, falling off and leaking in all directions in the building (as I had witnessed one day) and yet nobody cares! The leaders of Arochukwu (in politics, tradition, religion, et cetera) have hitherto failed to do anything to renovate or attract authorities of the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST) to do any form of renovation work in the PO ever since. Yes; no body has cared to write to the NIPOST to come and renovate the only PO Arochukwu we have! Yes; nobody had thought it necessary that Arochukwu should benefit from past renovation works and paintings of Post Offices in Nigeria that had led to the renovation of the Post Offices in Aba, Umuahia and other places.
Yes; let join many Umu Aro to ask again: when will the General Post Office in Arochukwu be renovated; and who will do that? Yes; who will attract the authorities of the NIPOST to do that – so that the falling roof-tiles used in building the structure decades ago do not continue to fall; even on the heads of the Bende-born Post Master and his son, who have agreed to work in the Post Office in a precarious situation many will dislike?
Really, the sorry state of Arochukwu Post Office clearly portrays all those who claim to be leaders in Arochukwu as careless and insincere people who prefer to develop other places than Arochukwu their town. This is exactly how and what I feel truly. We are really O biara mba mezie mba.
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