Abuja: A Tale of ‘Abandoned’ Pedestrian Bridges

Abuja has a large number of pedestrian bridges, which are hardly used by members of the public, who prefer to sprint across the busy roads. A campaign is on to woo the public to use the bridges, and a penalty of ‘N 2,000 or 3 months imprisonment or both ‘exists  for any violators. Mansur Abubakar […]

Abuja has a large number of pedestrian bridges, which are hardly used by members of the public, who prefer to sprint across the busy roads. A campaign is on to woo the public to use the bridges, and a penalty of ‘N 2,000 or 3 months imprisonment or both ‘exists  for any violators.
Mansur Abubakar says he will not forget the fateful Tuesday in a hurry. That day, he witnessed an accident where a pedestrian was knocked down by a car, with his lower limb severally fractured.
He was returning home to Kubwa from his shop at Arewa Suites in the Central Business District, Abuja, in his Honda Civic car. Cruising at what he claimed was a controllable speed along the AYA-Kubwa-Zuba Expressway, he had reached the pedestrian bridge at Gwarimpa by 8:30 pm.
Just a couple of meters to the bridge, another Honda Civic car overtook him at high speed. A short moment before then, with his headlamp beaming far, he had beheld the doomed-to-die man from a safe distance, moving restlessly at the left hand side of the four-lane flank of the express road towards Kubwa, intent on crossing.
In the tradition of the man behind the wheels, Abubakar was already thinking of how to avoid knocking him, just in case he reached that point of the road, should the man dash forth to cross. 
Recalling the gory accident, Abubakar says he could not imagine how it happened, but a few seconds after it overtook him, he saw the car knock the man, throw him up in the air, then he crashed on the tarred road dead, with the front tyres of the car crushing his lower limb to several fractures.
What Patrick Idibia witnessed on the expressway adjacent Gowon Barracks was not as gory, but it was, according to him, ‘traumatically pathetic’, because it involved a female school pupil in her early teens.
On the fateful day, which he could not remember, in 2015, Idibia, who had alighted from a taxi heading for AYA, was standing at the side of the express road facing the barracks at about 7:30 am in the morning, waiting for a friend to pick him up to his workplace at the Federal Secretariat.
He saw the two female school pupils a couple of meters to the pedestrian bridge adjacent the barracks, intent on crossing to  their school inside the barracks. He had thought of helping them across, but he became hesitant.
Idibia still recalls how he saw the two pupils dashing forth to cross the road, having observed that it was clear for them to cross safely, with the older clutching the arm of the younger. The younger, who observed a car advancing at a high speed, removed her arm from the fingers of the older and retreated fast.
Seconds after, the older was knocked down, sustaining fractures in the arms and legs. She was immediately rushed to the Aso Clinic in the same car. He would not know if she survived it. But, he was afraid, even if she did, she might remain maimed for life.
Beneath, the same pedestrian bridge penultimate Sunday, the corpse of a man was seen lying flat on the road.
The large population of the pedestrians in the city and its satellite towns, who stand beneath, or a few meters to the bridges, but will not utilize them for their safety baffles everyone.
Is there some force in the vicinity of these pedestrian bridges that controls the movements of pedestrians around the bridges, making them recalcitrant or blighting their capacity to do what is seemly by taking the bridges to cross to safety, which is the fundamental purpose for which they were built? One of such questions are asked frequently.
The pedestrian bridges, according to the Director of Information of the Federal Capital territory Administration (FCTA), Mrs. Stella Ojeme, are a World Bank financed project constructed by the Federal Ministry of Works and handed over to the FCTA, for use by pedestrians in the Abuja metropolis.      
“I don’t believe there is any such force,” Abubakar observes, reasoning, “No authority will build a pedestrian bridge with the sole purpose of facilitating pedestrians crossing safely to the other side of the road, but mischievously install some diabolism around it to pull away the pedestrians, making them to dash to their death or physical impairment of various degrees. No authority will be so ruthless as to do that.”
According to him, “It is sheer impatience on the part of the risk-taking pedestrians that leads them to death or deformity. You know, majority of us Nigerians, are always in a hurry to do things or arrive at destinations, and we so irritatingly prefer taking shortcuts to do these, whatever the risk involved. We are just impatient.”
Mansur, however, said, “While some of the pedestrian bridges, especially the one adjacent Sheraton Hotel and Yar Adua Centre, seem  useless, some seem to have been built far away from their proper locations, which is the possible convergence points of pedestrians intent on crossing the road, especially the one between Wuye junction and Finance Quarters along Berger-Area 1 Expressway. This is why most of such pedestrians are lackadaisical in trekking the distance to the pedestrian bridges.”
Idibia observes: “We may be educated, but the generality of us Nigerians prefer a ferocious method of law enforcement, to compel us to observe discipline and do what is seemly even if on a matter that is for our individual good.
“When soldiers at the Gowon Barracks observed that so many pedestrians were being knocked down near the pedestrian bridge I was telling you about, they caused a wire  fence to be constructed separating the two flanks of the expressway, making it impossible for anyone to risk dashing across. This, therefore, compelled pedestrians to take the bridge to cross. But the naughty pedestrians cut a wide-enough hole through the wire for a man to pass. A risk-taking pedestrian would just sneak through the hole like a goat and cross the road.”
The civil servant recalled: “When the soldiers observed this, they stationed a soldier who scares away any risk-taking pedestrians intent on sneaking through the wire, instead of taking the bridge. Sometimes the soldier compelled the pedestrians to observe strict discipline by queuing up the bridge whatever their number,” he recalled.
Idibia admitted, “I am also a culprit sometimes, but it pains me seeing the way people destroyed many sections of the wire fence between NICON Junction and Banex pedestrian bridges, to ease their sneaking through like goats and dashing across the road, even with the pedestrian bridges just metres away from their points of crossing.”
Halliru Ibrahim is a commuter-service motorcycle operator at Mararaba. He drops commuters from all over the wards under the pedestrian bridge adjacent the market there.
“You know Nyanya/Mararaba is a densely populated area. So, because the pedestrian bridge is near the market, the population of people crossing the road is also dense. There are criminals who operate even on the bridge. I must tell you that many pedestrians do not use the pedestrian bridge. At a time, soldiers were stationed there, compelling pedestrians to use the bridge, and anyone caught just dashing across or sneaking through the wire fence would be made to do frog jump,” he recalled.
“For a long time now, I have not seen the soldiers. They got tired and stopped, and the situation is very unfortunate. You cannot count the number of pedestrians knocked down and wounded or killed here,” he lamented.
“I must confess that, sometimes I use the pedestrian bridge when I want to buy an item, like second-hand clothes,” Julie Obadiah said beneath the Banex pedestrian bridge, explaining, “Traders of such items make brisk business there, and buyers, especially civil servants like me, who have little or no time to go to the market, rushing to your workplace or rushing home from your workplace, find it more comfortable and cheap buying items they need which they see on the bridge,” she said.
“It is a kind of hurried buying and selling. The traders themselves are ever on alert to hurriedly pack their wares and run to safety whenever they behold the environmental people (Abuja Environmental Protection Board staff), who go round arresting them; and the buyers hurriedly buy and proceed to their workplace or home,” Julie explained further.
“But I must confess most of the risk-taking pedestrians are the architects of their fate,when they get knocked down and killed or maimed,” she said.
“That is the challenge we have been facing with regard to the pedestrians,” FCTA Director of Information, Mrs. Stella Ojeme, complained, lamenting, “It baffles us to see that these pedestrian bridges were constructed for the pedestrians to use while crossing the road safely, but many of them prefer running across to their possible death or deformity.”
According to Mrs. Ojeme, “There is an FCTA-sponsored Bill now before the National Assembly to empower the FCTA to penalize pedestrians with regard to refusal to use the pedestrian bridge appropriately. The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) Act is no longer effective with regard to such penalties.”
According to the FCT Command of the Federal Road Safety Corp (FRSC), however, an FRSC regulation is in force with regard to this pedestrian offence.
It is: Pedestrian Compliance With Traffic Regulations, Regulation 173, Subsection 1-11 of the National Road Traffic Regulations (NRTR) 2012.
“Under this regulation, pedestrians must use the pedestrian bridges,” the FCT Sector Commander of the FRSC Sector Command, CC Sunday Oghenekaro, stressed, explaining further, “Any pedestrian caught violating this regulation is liable to pay N2, 000 or serve three months imprisonment or both”
CC Oghenekaro gave reasons for the continued inability of the FRSC Abuja Sector Command to arrest violators of the regulation.
“We are still mounting enlightenment campaigns under the pedestrian bridges all over the FCT, because most pedestrians argue that they are not aware of the regulation. In these campaigns, we are alerting the pedestrians to be prepared for the proper enforcement of the regulation, and we are warning them that anytime we hold our mobile court around the pedestrian bridges, with a magistrate presiding, we will not entertain any plea from any pedestrian with regard to violation,” the Sector Commander announced.
He said the Sector Command had already mounted such campaigns in the print and electronic media.
Until then, Abuja pedestrians scorn their bridges by dashing across the express road, even when they are right beneath them or just a couple of meters away. The bridges scorn back at them when they end up dashing to their death or disfigurement.