By Stanley Onyekwere
A group of road users, under the umbrella of The Road Users Development Network of Nigeria, have berated the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola for deplorable conditions of the Abuja-Keffi Expressway.
The group, while urging the Minister to fix it or resign immediately, said abandoning such an important Federal road is not only a betrayal of public confidence, but an offence to humanity.
Similarly, they called on FCT Minister, Mallam Muhammad Bello to expedite actions on the Apo-Karshi road project and save residents and other commuters the stress they go through daily.
Speaking on behalf of the group, it’s Director of Technical operations, Engineer Gabriel Godwin, noted that the bad spots on the AYA to Mararaba stretch of the Abuja-Keffi road, are not only causing untold hardship to commuters, but an embarrassment to the present administration.
Godwin also lamented that a section of the road that can be traversed in twenty minutes during peak periods, now takes about two hours due to the bad state of the road.
According to him , the Minister had over time paid very little attention to the existing carriageway of Road, which has remained in very bad shape.
According to him: “The bad portions of this ever busy federal road is just five minutes drive from the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and yet it is in this sorry state. Over 55 percent of the staff in the presidential villa and 65 of the ministry of work and FERMA staff ply this road everyday to and from work”
“The minister should immediately fix this road or resign and return to Lagos state. Whenever it rains in the evening, the traffic from kugbo, close to karu Bridge extend to the police headquarters in heart of the city and the fire service entrance gate of the presidential villa. Yet the minister , his team of directors and aides don’t seem to bother at all.”
He added that “ in front of Prince oil filling station, in Kugbo has led to several accidents, killing innocent Nigerians on daily basis. We contacted the headquarters of the Federal road maintenance agency and were told that the bad stretch of road from Abacha Barracks to FCT boundary with Nasarawa State is no longer under their schedule because the road is under expansion.
“A senior officer at FERMA’s office in Wuse 2 told us that it is Duty of the contractor handling the expansion work to fix the potholes but the highways department of the works and Housing ministry is not doing its job”.
