Abuja’s Iddo Junction: Where accidents occur daily

Last Tuesday, traders and motor-cyclists bared their fangs over this ugly development ‘’as a result of lawlessness by road users, including enlightened Nigerians.’’ A trader who gave her name as Elizabeth told Weekly Trust that “we are told there is Iddo in Lagos State and here is another Iddo along the Gwagwalada highway in the […]

Last Tuesday, traders and motor-cyclists bared their fangs over this ugly development ‘’as a result of lawlessness by road users, including enlightened Nigerians.’’

A trader who gave her name as Elizabeth told Weekly Trust that “we are told there is Iddo in Lagos State and here is another Iddo along the Gwagwalada highway in the FCT noted for accidents.”

 The trader said for whatever reasons, Dantata & Sawoe Construction Company shut a lane but created an opening for their vehicles to ply during working hours but residents and civil servants ply the lane at their own risk.   

She said many accidents have been recorded at the junction.

“On many occasions, we return from the market to find accidents at the junction. There have been series of head on collisions at both blocks.

“Motor-cyclists have collided with cars at both ends of the road blocks on many occasions,” she noted.

Iddo junction is a commercial centre. Onions, yam tubers, tomatoes and vegetables, etc are sold there daily. Mr Haruna Bako, a motor-cyclist said when civil servants are returning from work, they buy food items at Iddo junction. This, he said, leads to congestion daily thereby making it prone to auto accidents.

“As civil servants move closer to the junction to buy food stuffs, they neglect the diversion sign placed by the construction company thereby congesting the narrow path leading to Giri junction near Gwagwalada.”

Haruna, the cyclist, suggested that the road needs to be blocked and manned by the construction workers.

For the safety of lives and property, none of the traders at Iddo junction on Tuesday supported the use of the temporarily shut lane by drivers and cyclists. A lady who gave her name as Agnes Ebenezer, said money is the target of every trader, but regretted that money and all wealth gathered would sooner be useless without life.

“It is true that students and civil servants patronize us and we earn our livelihood here. But a single vehicle is capable of ending our businesses if the law is not obeyed. The small tyres that many people underrate are capable of climbing hills beyond one’s imagination. Do you know that many cars can jump the demarcation and cross from one side of the road to the other? What then do we say of jeeps, big buses and articulated trucks?” she asked.

Another trader Yinusa said the junction is always busy during weekdays when civil servants ply the FCT roads and boost trading activities. He said they equally expose traders to great dangers by plying a single lane in their movement in and out of the FCT.

He went further to say that drivers accelerate when they gain access into the lane.

The lane should be secured by staff of Dantata & Sawoe for the security of pedestrians and traders, said Yinusa.

“When motorists were not using the lane, motor-cyclists, pedestrians and traders were secured but our minds are never at rest because any unsuspecting thing can happen,” he said.

An resident who would not disclose his name, gave an account of how a red Volks-Wagon Golf car was involved in an accident one morning.

“I was at this junction when I heard `Krah!’. I traced the sound and discovered the place was far from the junction. But I heard the sound as if it was nearby. People gathered and we discovered that as a red VW Golf car was moving on the closed lane, one of the tyres went off. There were no casualties but that small tyre is capable of claiming a life,” he said.

A civil servant, Mrs Harrison, said she had on many occasions witnessed accidents here, among was one which involved five vehicles in a single accident.

“Two vehicles approaching Iddo junction from the Gawagwalada end and two others approaching the junction from Wuse were involved in a multiple accident. They collided at the junction as if it was planned to test the quality of the vehicles.  There is no day we do not record accidents here”, she said.

A trader at the junction disclosed further that the situation has been rough and people including traders and motorcyclists abandoned their activities in the evenings to watch how drivers, including those in control of articulated trucks claim rights as they manoeuvre their way looking for any possible outlet towards either directions.

“A trader said when all the two lanes were fully in use, motorists who stop to buy  items from us parked properly. No danger because they could buy items from either sides without crossing any lane.

“We are praying that the road should be completed on time for normalcy to return to the junction. For now, if the lane can be properly blocked and monitored by Dantata & Sawoe employees, we would be grateful because, here at Iddo junction, vehicles must crash daily,” the traders lamented.