Transport employers, especially truck owners, have expressed serious anger over the continued loss of their drivers, staff and goods as well as the frequent breakdowns of their vehicles on the Calabar-Uyo federal highway.
The truck owner also lamented the deplorable state of the only link road to neighbouring Akwa Ibom State and other southeast states, expressing worry that the road reconstruction has been at a snail’s pace in over ten years.
Recall that the Minister of Works, David Umahi inspected the road about three months ago and assured that contractors would not only return but would hasten the pace of work, but this did not happen.
Every day, no fewer than ten heavy-duty trucks and other types of vehicles break down or fall on the road because of its slippery and uncountable ditches.
One of the truck owners, Mr Samson Etete lamented extensive losses of bags of rice and other edibles when his long truck which conveyed them slipped off and fell into a ditch.
He was sad that insurance covers for the truck had expired a few days before, blaming the bad road and the huge number of other trucks competing for passage on the same bad road.
“This is yet another sad loss for me. A few months ago, another of my trucks had fallen on this same road near the Odukpani axis. That one, I did not lose as much as this one. Only the driver was dangerously affected, and the locals had also helped themselves to the spills.
“This latest slip of this truck is such that my goods, the bags of rice and bottles of groundnut oil, all fell into this very deep ravine. The community people have since carted away the bags of rice and the groundnut oils. How do I recover from this? How do I pull out the truck?”
Other trucks which often fell across the road usually blocked traffic flow resulting in total blockade, so that travellers end up spending longer hours or sleeping on the road with resultant dangers.
A traveller, Josephine Peter and her little daughter spent nearly ten hours travelling from Uyo in Akwa Ibom State to Calabar yesterday as against the normal two hours, reports our correspondent who spoke to the stranded mother and child.
“This suffering we’re subjected to has become heartbreaking and unbearable. It is affecting our health. It is exposing travellers to greater risks of armed robbery, kidnappers and such dangers.
“It is very painful that the contractors and even the government don’t seem to see the anguish and pains people are going through on this road.
“I appeal that the federal government should show concern and task the contractors to hasten actions.”
In the same vein, motorists have blasted officials of the Federal Road Safety Corps, FRSC, who mount checkpoints on the same deplorable Calabar-Uyo highway to allegedly extort them in the name of checking vehicle parts and documents.
A commercial driver who gave his name as Andrew, expressed anger that the bad road had critically harmed their vehicles.
“Is it that the Road Safety people are blind? How can they stand on this road to extort people? Don’t they have a conscience? This bad road seriously damages our vehicles. Anytime we’re lucky to arrive at our destinations with the vehicles in one piece, we must end up at the mechanic garages. And they’re wicked enough to add to our daily plights..”
The state controller of works in the Federal Ministry of Works, Adebisi Osim had reportedly pleaded for patience, assuring that the government was working to ensure completion of the reconstruction as Governor Bassey Otu has paid over N400m to land owners which earlier posed a problem.
Meanwhile, the Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, Aderemi Oseni, representing Ibarapa East/Ido Federal Constituency of Oyo State, recently, also assured that the Federal Government, under President Bola Tinubu, is prepared to repair all federal roads across Nigeria as part of the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda to alleviate the suffering of the masses.
All the promises are yet to be actualised as commuters and transporters continue to groan under the deplorable state of the federal road.
