Residents along the border communities adjoining both Plateau and Kaduna states have decried the deplorable condition of access roads in their domain
Stakeholders of the border communities that include: Riyom, Saminaka, Manchok and Jengre, among others, have thus appealed to the governments of the two states to rehabilitate and in other cases, rebuild the failed roads.
In separate interviews with The Arewa PUNCH in Jos on Wednesday, the residents described some of the border communities’ roads as “death traps,” particularly those leading in and out of the two states.
They disclosed that the residents and other stakeholders have continued to suffer untold hardships and heavy economic losses due to the long neglect of the roads by the two state governments as well as the Federal Government despite the several promises made in the past by the different governments to fix the road.
Lamenting the situation, a resident of Saaminaka, Dachung Job, said, “It’s always a nightmare for anyone travelling from Saminaka to Zaria. The same thing is true for those coming from Jos to Zaria as the road is riddled with big potholes to the extent that you won’t know which pothole is safe to drive through and manoeuvre without getting stuck.
“A journey that ordinarily should not take one more than two hours from Jos to Zaria now takes more than five hours, and this can be very frustrating,” he added.
Job continued, “Apart from that, you have to pray very hard if you want to travel on that road so as not to encounter armed robbers who usually take advantage of the poor condition of the road to rob innocent passengers of their belongings. Only recently, a friend of mine, alongside other passengers travelling to Zaria was attacked by robbers who waylaid them at a bad section of the road just after Saminaka. My friend lost N159,000 to the robbers who also collected his hand-held phone.
“Such stories are common among those travelling the Saminaka Zaria road,” he narrated.
Another resident of Riyom, Sandra Peter, who noted that communal efforts had sustained the Riyom-Kaduna-Abuja road so far, added that people living within the border communities were always stranded especially during rainy season as the roads were always flooded.
Sandra stressed, “Sometimes I pity those of us who live around the border communities of Riyom. It’s unfortunate that within this corridor, there are no access roads. If you want to go to Jos, there are no access roads. If you want to go to Kaduna, you will be discouraged when you remember the totally collapsed state of the roads. We have been begging both the federal and state governments to come to our aid by fixing the road, but none of them has listened.
“It’s as if the roads are not part of the roads in Nigeria to be fixed by the government, yet we hear about other roads being rebuilt. Whatever the considerations and yardsticks deployed to know which roads they need to give preference to, we plead that the governments at both levels speedily come to our aid, too.
“The most annoying aspect of it is that every year, we see FERMA officials with their big signboards displayed around the area mapping the road, but in the end, nothing is done. I think the authorities concerned should focus their searchlight on FERMA and its activities because we hear that there are also budgetary allocations for the repairs of the roads, which are federal roads. So, where are the allocations going to if they are not used for the intended purpose?” She queried.
Continuing, Sandra appealed, “We are therefore appealing to Governor Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau State and the Governor of Kaduna State Uba Sani to consider the plight of the people they govern and do something about these roads.”
PUNCH
