Abuja bomb blasts:Commuters groan under check point-induced gridlock

Within three weeks, two different bomb blast incidents in Nyanya, a suburb of Abuja, jolted residents.  The incidents left streams of sorrow on many faces by the sheer number of casualties and destruction they caused. Reacting to the challenges posed by the deadly explosions, the government instantly imposed stiffer security checks on the ever busy […]

Within three weeks, two different bomb blast incidents in Nyanya, a suburb of Abuja, jolted residents.  The incidents left streams of sorrow on many faces by the sheer number of casualties and destruction they caused. Reacting to the challenges posed by the deadly explosions, the government instantly imposed stiffer security checks on the ever busy Nyanya-Abuja road, which is the only access route from the eastern axis into the city centre.
Weekly Trust observed that since security checks on the route into Abuja were intensified, usually mounted by stern-looking soldiers, both motorists and commuters have been going through hell, braving the traffic gridlock created by the checkpoints, to get into town.  Motorists say to access the city centre from that axis one spends hours in the sickening traffic gridlock to get to his destination.
Also, it is worse particularly during peak periods, when people hurry to work in the mornings and at close of work in the evenings. Some Abuja residents, including visitors to the FCT bemoaned the hardship created by the security checks, as they urged the FCT administration, to explore ways of opening up alternative access routes to the city centre from the Mararaba-Nyanya axis.
Peter Zege, a transport worker at Nyanya told Weekly Trust that the lengthy traffic hold-ups security checks create affect both users of the road and even vehicles; hence it increases wear and tear on vehicles.
“It’s okay; we need the security being beefed up. But it should not take away attention of the FCTA and the federal government from the suffering it is inflicting on those who ply the road. I think the best option is to decongest the Nyanya–Mararaba part of the route by opening up alternative access routes that people can use in getting to the city centre,” Zege said.
Another Abuja resident, Mr. Benjamin Penny, said although deploying security agents to mount checks on the Nyanya–Abuja road is not a bad idea, but added that government has to look beyond the surface if it is really interested in securing lives of the people.
“The security checks have caused fresh problems of hours of traffic hold-up on the route. So, government should look for ways of making things easy for the citizens and even security agents. They can plant bomb detectors not just on the Mararaba-Nyanya-Abuja route, but all other routes that lead to the FCT. This could also be done on other major routes within the FCT,” Penny said.
“If this is done, once a vehicle conveying bombs or weapons passes at these bomb detector spots, the system would raise an alarm instantly and security agents would cordon the area and arrest the culprit before he visits violence on people. This is in addition to opening up alternative access routes into the FCT. This way, it would ease traffic on any particular route, as presently experienced and even when security checks intensify, it will not cause this kind of traffic hold-up experienced now,” he added.
Rex Olokpese, a civil engineer who said he has spent several years in Abuja, out rightly blamed the government for the high casualty figure arising from bomb blasts within or around the FCT. He said failure of the government to open up access routes as contained in the Abuja Master-plan has caused the congestion and the attraction for suicide bombers to attack the only and usually crowded Mararaba-Nyanya-Abuja road.
“I think from the axis of Jikwoyi to Karshi alone, there are about three access routes to the city centre, all linking various parts of the city. We have the Karshi-Apo; then there is another one from the Kpegyi area to Kuruduma and others. We are not talking about the road from the Mararaba area that burst out either at Dutse or is it Mpape? If these routes are opened, and there are security checks, they cannot create any serious hold-ups or congestion that would attract bombers,” Olokpese said.
Mr. Bello Baiyee, a businessman who resides at Nyanya close to the epicentre of the latest bomb blasts, told Weekly Trust that the traffic hold-ups caused by the security checkpoints is deadly and would create more problems than the authorities intend to solve.
“The government itself knows this and I believe they are also not comfortable with it, especially with the manner bomb blasts are happening in Abuja now. No one prays for it, but if they should drop it on a traffic hold-up spot, only God knows what will happen. So, the right thing to do especially now is to open up access routes to decongest the present one. A government sensitive to the feelings of the people would have declared state of emergency on these roads instantly and construction work would have been going on day and night to finish them in order to ease the problem,” Baiyee said.
However, the idea of alternative routes into the city centre has been on the cards of development projects of the FCTA for years. Weekly Trust investigations also show that plans have been in the pipeline to build new routes to decongest the Masaka-Mararaba-Nyanya-Abuja road. These include the Karshi-Apo road and the Mpape-Gitata-Kabayi-Mararaba roads.
It was gathered that the Masaka- Mararaba-Nyanya route services people who live in these areas, but work in the city centre. These suburbs,which are thickly populated, include Masaka, Ado, New Nyanya, One-man village up to Mararaba and Nyanya.  Also, residents of Jikwoyi, Kpegyi, Kurudu, Orozo, Mararaban Loko and Karshi, all heavily populated suburbs servicing Abuja, also depend on the same route to access the city centre.
In addition, people from states in the northeast and north central like Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Nasarawa, Taraba, Benue and Adamawa, also depend on the route to access Abuja.
FCT Minister Senator Bala Mohammed, while making reference to the decongestion of the route at the weekend lamented that “the area of huge challenge is Nyanya where the corridor is narrowed by demographics. People come in from Nasarawa. We have over two million people on this corridor.”
But work on these alternative access routes into Abuja from these areas is still at the preliminary stage and perhaps, even forgotten by the government.  For instance, during the 2014 budget defense before the House of Representatives’ Committee on the FCT, the minister failed to make any reference to the Karshi-Apo road, which has been under construction in the past two years.  It was also not listed among the17 key FCTA projects of the national priority budget for which the ministry was requesting over N470 billion for their completion in 2014.
When Weekly Trust visited the Karshi-Apo project site recently, which is being handled by Mangrove Tech. Nig. Ltd, work was still at the preliminary stage, with just earth–scrapping and grading, covering a few kilometres.   Officials at the Ministry for FCT told Weekly Trust in confidence that the dearth of funds has slowed down progress of work on the project, a fact confirmed by Senator Mohammed at the wekend.
“We have (the) challenge of finances. Within the satellite towns, we wanted to open Karshi from this intersection; you just go to Abuja through Apo. But this project has been on for two years – all the art works have been completed. We’ll accelerate… even through SURE-P to complete it,” he said.
A senior official  at  the FCTA, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed that  there has been zero budgetary allocation for the project in the last few years.