…As commuters daily risk death plying federal roads in Niger
• State govt appeals to FG for urgent intervention
From John Adams Minna
At least, 140 people lives have been lost in the six fuel tankers accidents that occurred in the last two years, as has been gleaned from statistics released by the Niger State Emergency Management Agency (NISEMA) in a recent report.
The report attributed the accidents to the deplorable condition of both federal and state highways in the state.
The disturbing facts came out when the agency briefed newsmen in Minna on its activities in the last two years.
NISEMA also disclosed that in May this year, 36 people perished along Agaie-Badegi road in Katcha Local Government Area as a result of a head-on collision between a truck and an 18-seater bus.
Aside the statistics by NISEMA, the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC) put the total accidents across various highways in the state at 154 with 98 people killed.
FRSC further indicated that between January 2024 and May this year, about 56 people died in 26 road traffic crashes in the state. This is aside the victims of tanker explosion from road accidents
With wide and deep craters along the terribly bad road, plying on them has become a nightmare for commuters who daily risk death on the highways. Moreover, the bad condition of the roads makes it difficult to move goods smoothly and timely, thereby affecting business operations.
The occurrence of accidents on these federal highways across the state is a common sight as no day passes without one form of accident or the other happening and lives lost.
For instance, the 98 kilometers Minna-Suleja road is the only road that connects Minna, the state capital with Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and it remains the busiest federal highway in the state with over 2000 private and commercial vehicles plying it on daily bases.
The Minna-Suleja road which was last reconstructed about 30 years ago is among the numerous federal roads in the state that are now in deplorable conditions and in urgent need of Federal Government attention.
For instance, during the 2011 presidential election campaign, former President Goodluck Jonathan, in a desperate need of votes from the people of the state announced the award of contract for the dualization of the dilapidated Minna-Suleja highway at the initial cost of N4.7billion for the first phase.
However, the ovation that greeted this announcement was short lived because as soon as the election was over without victory for the then president, the contractor handling the project disappeared from site and abandoned the project due to lack of payment.
The road quickly deteriorated, causing anguish and nightmares for the people travelling to Abuja from Minna and Suleja, the two most populous cities of Niger State, on daily bases with a sharp increase in accident rates.
Motorists and other road users have continued to narrate stories of how they spent four to five hours on the 83 kilometers Minna-Suleja road due to its condition, a journey they said used to take less than one hour when it was good.
However, when the late President Muhammadu Buhari took office, his administration reviewed the contract and also awarded a contract for the second phase which was expected to terminate in Minna, the state capital, but regrettably only 15 percent of the work was attained.
Ever since then, the road has remained a death trap, claiming lives on daily bases.
Mohammed Abdullahi, a commercial driver who claimed to ply the road on daily basis, shuttling between Minna and Zumba in Abuja, told our correspondent that the rate of accident on the road is alarming.
“People die on this road almost every day. Apart from the accidents, we visit mechanics each time you follow this road, it is terribly bad. The government needs to do something about it,” he said.
Sunday Sun learnt that 25 crashes have been recorded with 50 lives lost and goods worth millions of naira destroyed.
Worried by state of the federal roads, Niger State Governor Mohammed Umar recently appealed to the Federal Government to revoke the contract for the Suleja-Minna road awarded to Salini Nigeria Limited since 2011, saying that the contractor lacks the necessary capacity to undertake project.
The governor made the appeal during a Town Hall Meeting/Stakeholders Engagement on the construction of the 125km, three lanes single carriage (Niger State component) of the 1,068km Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway in Minna.
The governor while addressing the gathering explained that the call to terminate the contract became necessary because from all indications Salini Nigeria Limited lacked the capacity to execute the road project effectively, stressing that after 14 years since the 83km road contract was awarded, only about 35 percent of the job had been achieved. He urged the Federal Government to terminate the contract.
His words: “I will look at this company in the face and say, Salini has failed, and the company doesn’t have the capacity. We are calling on the Minister to revoke the contract given to the company and award it to Hi-Tech Construction Company or CCECC to handle, just like the way the Abuja-Kano road was revoked from Julius Berger recently.”
Only recently, a family of five returning to Abuja after spending the weekend with extended family members in Minna perished in an accident when their vehicle had a head-on collision with a commercial vehicle that was trying to avoid a pot hole.
Also the late Chairman of Katcha Local Government Area of the state lost his life on the road when his car collided with an oncoming vehicle.
Niger state has the longest federal roads in Nigeria, covering about 1,437 kilometers and spread across 15 out of the 25 local government areas of the state.
Out of this, 1,115 kilometers, representing about 80% of these are trunk ‘A’ roads, which are in deplorable condition.
This has brought untold hardship to the people with serious effect on their daily economic activities and deaths from accidents have become a common sight on these roads.
Some of the roads now in complete bad shape are: Jebba-Mokwa –Bokani; Kontagora-Rijau through to Zuru in Kebbi State; Katcha-Baro-Agaie and the Rofia-Swete-Segbema, the ever busy Suleja-Minna road and Tegina-Kagara-Kaduna roads
Others are the Wawa-Kaima, Auna-New Bussa, Sarkin pawa-Kaduna section as well as the Mokwa to Makera-Tegina roads.
While the state government has taken over the construction of some of these roads under the 1,030 kilometers roads projects, others are seriously begging for attention.
Some of these federal roads currently receiving state government intervention include the Kontagora-Rijau road, Minna-Kontagora road and Bida-Minna, the remaining ones are now deathtraps and helping criminals to unleash terror on innocent travelers.
The bad conditions of the roads, in addition to having negative impact on the economic lives of the people, armed robbers and kidnappers have continued to use the bad spots to carry out nefarious activities. They kidnap innocent Nigerians traveling on these roads on daily bases. Two weeks ago, motorists traveling along Mokwa -Tegina –Makera-Kaduna highway were held hostage by a group of armed robbers numbering about 20, for several hours.
Also the Minna-Zungeru-Tegina road is another nightmare for travelers. While the people grapple with the bad condition of the road, kidnappers equally take the advantage of the bad spots to unleashed terror on the people.
Nevertheless, of all the federal roads in the state it is important to note that the Bida-Mokwa ever busy highway is the only federal road in the state that has received federal government attention in the last 30 years with the award of N9 billion contract for its construction in 2013.
It has remained the only motorable federal highwaysin the state. The completion of the road brought relief to motorists plying it with economic activities of the people now at its highest peak.
Before the intervention by former President GoodLuck Jonathan administration in 2013, the Bida-Mokwa highway, which was left abandoned by every successive administration spanning over 20 years claimed over 300 lives in various accidents.
The pains and cries of the people on the worsening condition of Federal roads in the state prompted the Governor, Umaru Mohammed Bago and other stakeholders in the state to pay a visit to the Minister of Works, David Umahi to solicit the support of the federal to come to the aid of his administration in fixing the Suleja- Minna road and other federal roads in the state.
During his audience with the minister, the Ggvernor lamented that the roads were beyond the scope of the state in terms of financial implication, which he said had made it imperative to appeal for the federal government to fulfill its promise and intervene in the construction of the roads
However, while Governor Bago and residents of the state groan over the condition of the Suleja-Minna road, people in Niger North senatorial district, who have been wallowing in total neglect in the provision of essential services by the federal government especially in the area of road infrastructures. , anguish and frustration have been the lot
When the new Emir of Borgu, Alhaji Mohammed Sani Dantoro, spoke with newsmen during a tour of some federal roads under his domain, his submission was not different from that of Governor Bago
The Borgu kingdom plays host to Kainji hydroelectricity dam and the Kainji national but these two national monuments are today inaccessible to tourists due to the condition of the roads.
The monarch lamented that the presence of federal government’s monuments in the area had not produced necessary benefits to the residents of the area, saying that most of the monuments located in the area had become inaccessible.
He maintained that the lack of roads in the area is a major security threat and this has been responsible for the rampant cases of kidnapping and armed robbery within the axis.
The royal father made particular reference to Mokwa-New Bussa-Wawa-Agwara and Roffia roads that have been abandoned for over 40 years, stressing further that this had led to beehive of criminal activities along the area as communities were cut off from each other and major cities kept incommunicado.
The Daily Sun gathered that the Mokwa-New Bussa-Agwara-Roffia road was a vital component in the construction of the Kainji hydroelectric power station built around 1968 but was abandoned as soon as the dam was completed and commissioned.
However, President Muhammadu Buhari in 1993 as the chairman of the defunct Petroleum Trust Funds (PTF) reconstructed the road but since then no maintenance has been carried out on the road.
An attempt at constructing the New Busa-Wawa-Agwara- Roffia road was made in 2010 again in the heat of the 2011 presidential election.
A contract for the construction of the road was said to have been awarded by the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FEMA) at the time, when former governor of Niger sSate, Alhaji Abdulkadir Kure was the chairman of the FEMA board but no significant achievement was recorded as the contractors could not be mobilized to site.
Commenting on the condition of federal roads in the state, a former commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism and now Special Adviser to the Governor on Communication, Media and Strategy, Mr. Jonathan Vatsa,said that there is the need for Federal Government to urgently revisit all dilapidated federal roads across the state, especially the Agaie, Katcha Baro road which was re-awarded last year but had become abandoned project.
He said, “the over 30km Agaie, Katcha-Baro road which cost the federal government about N17.5 billion was awarded in January 2015 and was expected to be completed by January 16, 2016. The road has been abandoned and neglected. We want the federal government to put its roads in Niger State in good condition because presently, no federal road is motorable in the state.
Vasta urged the federal government to break the jinx over the construction of the Suleja-Minna highway which has suffered abandonment by every successor administration in the country.
“The federal must break the jinx over the construction of the Suleja-Minna highway because for over 20 years now the road has been dragging. It is among the busiest roads in the state but the condition of the road is better imagined than experienced,” he added.
It is however pertinent to point out that the federal government has been making efforts at repairing portions of its roads that have brokendown in the state. Although the Controller of Federal Roads in the state was not available for comment on this issue, our correspondent gathered in Minna that selected dangerous sections of roads have been rehabilitated by the federal government through FEMA and World Bank-assisted projects.
Some contractors that spoke to our correspondent in confidence said that non-release of funds had stalled most roads projects not only in Niger State but across the country, stressing that “It is therefore expedient for the federal government to pay deserved attention to funding road projects.”
The post Deadly highways: 140 die in 6 fuel tanker accidents appeared first on The Sun Nigeria.
