Some of them with a sense of figurative language were starker. “There is no road!” one respondent declared.
I was not miffed at first because Niger State has no reputation for a great road network, in fact, the Power State is infamous for the poor condition of its major roads. However, it was evident from the outset that the Baro road must be especially bad for it to generate the many warnings I got.
One person, however, issued more than just a warning. A Minna-based colleague I was expecting to help me discover Baro sounded an alarm. “Have you gotten security clearance for the trip,” she said on the phone when I called to divulge the plan. I was taken aback. Was I going to Sambisa or any of those recesses of the Zamfara forests? This colleague went on to warn about the operations of bandits in the rural areas of Niger State, and even when I insisted that I was not aware that part of the state was infested by the notorious bandits, she authoritatively countered that 12 of t