By Young Erhiurhoro
The East-West road as we know is a popular and very busy federal road and our major area of focus in this report is the Ughelli to Patani axis, all in Delta State. Therefore, this report will seek the immediate attention of both the federal government and the Delta State government on how to curtail the different risks and challenges confronting road users in order to bring life and peace back to the road itself and also to the road users.
As a federal road, I know that so many official vehicles of government, convoys of governors, National Assembly members, House of Assembly members, ministers, commissioners, local government chairmen and other government officials use this particular portion of the road almost everyday for a visit to a particular place or for a very important official assignment. Yet, they pay deaf ears to the cries and pains of motorists and their passengers plying that section of the road. In their own case, they are always very comfortable in any of their journeys because security is always guaranteed. Unlike the public motorists and passengers that are opened to the gimmicks and dangers of kidnapping and risks of accident with any slight mistake.
The basic truth, without beating around the bush is that, the whole section of the East-West federal road of Ughelli to Patani is no longer motorable and safe for travels and journeys especially for public motorists and commercial transporters. It has recently turned to be a “death trap” and a “centre for kidnapping” .
To start with, the road is a double lane carriage road. The old road constructed years ago by the Dumez Construction Company and the new one recently constructed by the Setraco Construction Company. As we speak, all the old bridges built by the Dumez Construction Company from Ughelli to Patani have broken down since the road was made a double lane by Setraco. In fact, these have caused a lot of accidents to many road users and equally claimed lives of innocent citizens of this country. It’s expected by poor drivers and passengers using the road that, by now the federal government through the NDDC would have mobilized the contractor to site to reconstruct all the broken bridges in the East-West road to boost its worthiness as a federal road. But this the federal government refused to do and quietly watching the people to die silently without remedy.
Secondly, apart from the broken bridges, different parts of the road from this same Ughelli to Patani are destroyed long ago. There are many uncontrollable pot-holes in different parts of the road. All these are portent risks of accident to road users. These bad spots of the road have caused several vehicular collusions in recent times as drivers wanted to escape these bad spots. Recently, a fatal accident happened between Evwreni and Unenurhie communities where almost all the passengers died as the driver jumped from his lane to the other lane in order to escape from a bad spot. Unfortunately, he escaped from a bad spot to a death spot that nearly took the lives of all the passengers. How I wish these fatal accidents have happened to those government officials on convoys!
Finally, we want to conclude this report by looking at the security situation of that axis of the East-West road. Truly, the Ughelli to Patani axis of the road is a centre for kidnapping. In fact, it has now turned to a daily occurrence and habitual routine that a group of passengers must be kidnapped along that road everyday. The most fearful and deadly section is between Ogor and Evwreni communities. That thick forest between Ogor and Evwreni is now a “danger zone” for road users. Few days ago, it was reported on how a full bus vehicle of passengers was stopped by these same kidnappers, discharged all the passengers into a waiting vehicle and took them to unknown destination where huge financial ransome were demanded by the kidnappers from the families of their victims. It was also reported that, two of the victims died in the thick forest before help came from the Nigerian Army. This is just one instance amongst thousands of kidnapping reports in that section of the road.
Having suffered all these deadly calamities in the hands of kidnappers and armed robbers and also on bad road; what the federal government and the Delta state government need to do now to make that axis of the East-West road safe and motorable for road users? I think this is the most pertinent question the government need to provide answer if only the government is constituted to protect the people and make life comfortable for their well being. First, the federal government through the NDDC should immediately without further delay or bottleneck processes of passing bills, mobilize the contractor to site to work on all the bad spots of the road, including the broken bridges.
Secondly, the federal government in full partnership with the Delta state government should remove all the police check-points especially from the Ogor and Evwreni section and immediately replace them with Army check-points. This is the only way to curtail the evil and criminal activities of these bad boys. In most cases, as a news reporter, I have heard several complaints from motorists and even passengers on how policemen in check-points compromised and sometimes connived with these kidnappers to ease their kidnapping activities. Based on this alleged accusations on the police, the government should remove them now and immediately replace them with the Army. Nigerian government, a stitch in time saves nine!
