By Stanley Onyekwere
Commuters were rescued from an unprecedented traffic gridlock along Nyanya-Kugbo- AYA Road as officials of the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) battled through an excruciating experience and brought the situation under control.
It was gathered the nightmarish gridlock that lasted for over 12 hours on Saturday, was caused by an ill-fated heavy duty trailer carrying logs of wood, around the Kugbo axis of the busy Abuja-Keffi expressways.
This, according to Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring, Inspection and Enforcement to FCT Minister, Ikharo Attah, said it took the intervention of a combined team of both the Military, Police, and other agencies to abate the situation.
Attah, who lamented that the gridlock lasted more than expected due to the attitude of some undisciplined uniform officers, also urged residents and commuters to always cooperate with relevant security agencies in any emergency situations.
He confirmed that irrespective of the horrible experience, the gridlock was finally cleared around 4:50am.
He said, “ a trailer carry carrying Timber from had failed break and completely blocked the road with the timbers and the body of the truck , I never thought it would be an extremely hectic day because it was a weekend.
“ But this was not the case, many thanks to the FRSC Nyanya unit Commander, DPO karu Division and DRTS officials who opened for use the service lane that is still under construction.
“The FRSC tow away truck arrived around 6am and cleared the truck and timbers off before 6.50am. While we were thinking of retreating to rest, the entire road(both main carriage way and service lane under construction) were completely blocked by those driving against traffic to and from Abuja. It immediately got to a point of no movement at all.
“We immediately resumed traffic control duties; Route lining and Pin down. The military deployment also helped greatly. Two military men specially did very well to complement efforts. One is a corporal the other , I don’t know his rank.
“ After over 8 hours of battling and turning back motorists, the road was fully opened around 4.50pm.
“ Our most tortuous experience today was from security personnel attached to VIPs. All they wanted was to move their principals through, no matter how bad it worsened the already difficult situation”.
