Travellers on the dilapidated Makurdi-Otukpo-Obollo-Afor-9th Mile Road are about to witness a new lease of life on the road.
The over 10 years of agony and pains experienced on the road would soon be over, as the Federal Government has decided to remember the people. The government has taken a bold step to address the dilapidated road, which has been abandoned by many travellers, leaving only the articulated vehicles to ply under excruciating pains. A construction company, China Harbour Limited, has mobilised to the site to make the road passable before the yuletide. The palliative work would involve grading and refilling the failed spots, clearing the water-logged areas for proper drainage and expansion of the road for easy passage of vehicles.
This recent intervention came at a time when the road has become a death-trap riddled with potholes, gullies and water-logged areas, right from Opi Nsukka to 9th Mile.
According to a Daily Sun reporter, who took the road recently, there were several lorries and trucks that skidded off the roads into the shallow ditches that dot the road, while other vehicles were trapped in the mud for hours. Scenes of dismembered vehicles on the road were evidence of the torturous journey that drivers experience. A few vehicles that survive the road’s distress had to crawl at a snail’s speed, with scars of damage on their parts.
Daily Sub’s investigation revealed that the lawmaker representing Enugu North Senatorial Zone, at the upper legislative chamber of the National Assembly, Senator Okey Ezea, took the bull by the horn by mobilising the necessary support for the federal government’s intervention on the abandoned road.
In a passionate appeal to his fellow lawmakers, Senator Ezea described the Makurdi-Otukpo-Obollor-Afor-9th Mile Road as the major gateway to the Southeast and South-south zones from the North, and counted the economic losses suffered by the regions from the dilapidated state of the road. He explained that about 85 percent of the farm produce transported from Northern Nigeria to the two geo-political zones in the South pass through the road which has been left in ruins for many years.
He also called the attention of several stakeholders to the decrepit state of the road, which he attributed to long years of disrepair and neglect. He noted that the poor state of the road in recent time brought undue delays in the haulage of farm produce, in addition to incidents of road mishaps and kidnapping at various failed portions of the expressway. He argued that the delay in delivery of farm produce resulted to sky-high prices in local markets in the region.
Senator Ezea recalled that the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan, at some point, entered into an agreement with the China Harbour Limited under a Build–Operate-and-Transfer model. According to him, the concessionaire commenced the project from the Keffi end of the road and has currently done extensive work up to Makurdi.
Sadly, the concessionaire has not been able to progress beyond Makurdi, and this has left the Otukpo-Obollo-Afor-9th Mile axis of the road in utter dilapidation.
It was gathered that the dilapidated state of the road prompted Senator Ezea to personally commission a team of engineers from Otukpo to 9th Mile to ascertain the level of deterioration, and further took the matter to the Minister of Works, Dr. Dave Umahi, on the need for an urgent intervention.
Ezea further rallied the support of the Senate leadership, including the South East Senate caucus, and other senators from Enugu State, who lent their support to the motion for the Federal Government’s urgent intervention on the dilapidated road.
Reacting to the development, a businessman in Onitsha, Emma Chjioke Utazi, told the Daily Sun that the remedial work on the road would save traders from frequent losses. He lamented that goods such as tomatoes, yam and beans, worth millions of Naira were constantly spilled on the road by fallen trucks; a development he said has rendered some businessmen poor and out of business. He noted that the poor state of such an important gateway for such a long period of rime has resulted in huge and unquantifiable economic losses to the nation.