Construction of AbujaKano road threatened, compromised
Adetailed report undertaken by Daily Trust Newspaper which appeared in its edition of Monday December 6, 2019 showed that there are more than 3,000 potholes along the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano road which cause serious accidents leading to loss of lives and destruction of properties and vehicles worth billions of naira. This is in addition to grid locks, and loss in valuable time that would have been devoted to other ventures of life.
The lives of motorists and commuters are daily agonised on this road. Some motorists describe the road as a real death trap to innocent lives due to the refusal of Julius Berger to give the job the urgency and seriousness it deserves.
The general feeling is that either the contractor is overloaded with several contracts it is executing across the country, or government officials have compromised and looked the other way while lives and properties are killed and destroyed daily in numbers. The supervisory Ministry of Works is already guilty of effectively supervising the job due to negligence or compromise. President Muhammadu Buhari needs to call the contractor to order in order to expedite work and avert further loss of lives.
The option of engaging other contractors as put forward by the House of Representatives Committee on Works sent to the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, is a right step in the right direction since Julius Berger has shown lack of capacity to complete it.
My greatest surprise is the fact that our so-called activists have remained mute over the loss of lives. Instead of them engaging the Minister of Works and the contractor, they are either attacking government on rising cases of debt in the country or supporting proponents of illegal take-over of government through the infamous and undemocratic ‘#RevolutionNow’ led by Sowore. What a shame.
The governors, traditional rulers, politicians and other elite have also kept sealed lips while lives are lost. They need to speak up if at all they have the interest of the citizens at heart who travel by road from various parts into and out of Abuja.
Unless and until this matter is brought to the front burner, President Muhammadu Buhari’s effort to reconstruct the road may not see the light of the day.
Musa Ilallah, Abuja.
Emeka Anyaoku street,