Demolition for reconstruction of Nasarawa’s Kabayi-Aso-Pada road

It takes only a few steps walk across Mararaba in Nasarawa to Nyanya in the FCT, to discover that one would be leaving behind a complete lack of development control. The Nasarawa side looks quite horrible.From Mararaba through Ado, New Nyanya, Masaka, Auta Balefi, and the areas down towards Keffi along the Abuja-Keffi federal highway, […]

It takes only a few steps walk across Mararaba in Nasarawa to Nyanya in the FCT, to discover that one would be leaving behind a complete lack of development control. The Nasarawa side looks quite horrible.
From Mararaba through Ado, New Nyanya, Masaka, Auta Balefi, and the areas down towards Keffi along the Abuja-Keffi federal highway, the long border the state enjoys with the FCT is a curse of some sort. At best, the area serves as dormitory to persons working or doing businesses in Abuja, because of the large number of low-income earners who troop back from the FCT at night, to sleep in the unplanned development and begin to run to the FCT by day break, to work.  
 Aso-Pada and Kabayi areas of Mararaba, bordering Nyanya at a place popularly called Sharp Corner are some of the places to notice a height in absence of development control. Those areas are some of the centres of madness in traffic congestion, street trading and all manner of chaotic outlook because the setbacks of the road running from Sharp Corner through Kabayi to Aso Pada is completely not only taken over by makeshift development, the road itself is further reduced so narrow that it can, at best serve as a foot path.
 This road was constructed during the administration of Abdullahi Adamu, towards the completion of that eight-year tenure that began in 1999. The project was World Bank assisted, as many others at the gateway to Abuja. But that once fine road has now almost disappeared into a mud site because the asphalt that once coated it has chopped with the trend of non-maintenance.
The absence of development control, occasioned by lack of vision by previous governments and commitment by Nasarawa Urban Development Board (NUDB) in tackling the steady decline in the urbanization process in the entire state, only compounded the situation for the 17 years the state has existed. The result at hand now is that of urban centres without character.
The government of Umaru Tanko Al-Makura initiated an urban regeneration in Lafia, Akwanga and much of Karu at the gateway to Abuja, in what has seen an ongoing execution of urban roads and accompanying drainages in the state capital and Akwanga, in the northern zone of the state. Lafia alone has over 60 kilometres of what has become Nasarawa’s first asphalt coated roads running through all sections of the town.
 Aso-Pada and Kabayi areas of Mararaba will roll up into the larger project. There is a project to rerun that road now; in what is expected to be the commencement of the totality of a chain of projects to further bring regeneration into the areas at the long border with the FCT. To do this will mean removing all structures in the way in a demolition exercise.
The demolition has already taken place, during the late days of December of 2013. The NUDB and its mother ministry, Lands and Urban Development and all stakeholders involved in the project, as well as the governor himself have had several meetings with residents around there, to prepare them for what will come.
The other ministry’s commissioner, Sonny Agassi, and Managing Director of NUDB, Adamu Sule as well as the governor’s Senior Special Assistant on Development Control, Hassan Ogbole have met with residents there and informed residents, members of National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), traders’ associations, tea and meat sellers, timber traders and various other persons doing businesses in places not designated for such use of the demolitions, and sought their cooperation.
 These days, however, some resistance to the proposed projects are building up because the people there feel government only embarked on the demolition to visit pain on them. The same people had hailed the demolition to pave the way for the regeneration of their area. But that the proposed road is dragging, without the contractors even assembling their equipment for the job; the people are worried. They feel there is no project after all.
 “We trusted government when they came around for demolition; that we will now have a road here. Sadly, we see no contractors on ground. Some people are returning to build in the same area, worsening the unplanned nature of the area,”  said a resident there.
But the NUDB Managing Director, Sule told Daily Trust that the commencement of the project is coming soon. He said, “To develop, we have to remove the unplanned development there. That is part of development control we’re doing”.
 He said, “We’ve already prepared the contract documents. We have done the provisional offer to the contractors, already. The job will soon commence.” He named the contractors as CGC Nigeria Limited.
 He said the road lengths up to 5.3 kms with job specification to include provision of asphalt line drains. “It’s high class road; that is what is projected for Kabayi-Aso-Pada Road,” he said adding that the job execution is for six months.
Sani Musa Mairiga, Special Assistant to the Governor on Media, had earlier said the project is close to his boss’ heart, as he assured residents that the execution will be done within the shortest possible time.
 Mairiga warned residents to desist from encroaching into setbacks of roads at the gateway to Abuja, as he said the present government will go all legal heights at removing all unapproved development to pave way for planned development.