Road users, residents denounce state of Nnamdi Azikiwe byepass

Motorists and residents of Kaduna, capital of Kaduna State, have decried the state of the Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway, saying the road is characterised by too many potholes.

They said the potholes, which they described as death traps, had actually caused many auto crashes, leading to loss of lives and damage to vehicles.

The Nnamdi Azikiwe Expressway, built to decongest Kaduna city centre, is a popular route for travellers and residents who live around Mahuta, Rigasa, Kabala West, Kagoro, Bakinruwa, Dutsinma, Trikania and Kudenda communities, among others.

Mallam Haruna Suleiman, a taxi driver, told our reporter that many car owners and travellers who ply the expressway often suffer tyre damage due to the bad state of the road. “Frequently too, drivers try to dodge the potholes only to collide with other vehicles. Some vehicles have summersaulted on running into the potholes,” he said.

A motorist, Ibrahim Jafar, said, ‘’I want our leaders to take a visit to Kagoro Junction by the expressway. You will be surprised at what you see. The entire portion of the road at that junction is totally damaged and vehicles find it very difficult to pass through because anytime it rains, that place becomes a river that holds water due to the wide nature of the hole there.’’

A motorcyclist, Benedict Iliya, lamented that he lost his younger brother to an auto crash along the expressway. ‘’A driver was trying to dodge a pothole not knowing my brother was coming behind on a motorbike. The driver hit my brother’s bike and he fell, receiving injury in his head that caused him his life,” Iliya recalled.

When contacted, the spokesperson of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) in Kaduna, Engineer Sani Abdulkadir, said that repair of the expressway had been captured in the 2016 budget, adding that the headquarters of the agency was currently in the process of awarding contracts.