Is Kaduna’s bridge falling?

“This is what we face every day,” says Akpan, peeping through the window to have a glimpse of what was happening ahead. “And it is worse when it rains. Sometimes we get home around 8pm.” In the morning, heavy traffic starts as early as 7pm from the Barnawa roundabout as residents in Kaduna South come […]

“This is what we face every day,” says Akpan, peeping through the window to have a glimpse of what was happening ahead. “And it is worse when it rains. Sometimes we get home around 8pm.”

In the morning, heavy traffic starts as early as 7pm from the Barnawa roundabout as residents in Kaduna South come into Kaduna North to resume their daily jobs or businesses. As motorist pass, the roundabout forms three lines, despite the presence of law enforcement officers. Until they pass the stadium roundabout, then the number of lines is reduced. In the evening, the traffic shifts to the other lane when people close from work and are returning back home.

The evening traffic is always heavier. This is because as the people close from work to return to the southern side of Kaduna, while other people are closing from work at the southern part and returning to the northern part. The traffic jam is further worsened by cars coming into Kaduna from Abuja or Kano, who also have to take the same route.

Sitting in the car, Akpan is worried, but not because she could not get home on time to do her house chores, but because she is on the bridge. “It has been in bad shape for some time now. It even vibrates,” she says. “Sometimes when you are passing, you will feel it shaking as if it is going to collapse.  Then there’s the noise. The first day I heard it, I could not pass the bridge when I was returning home. I had to take the Western Bypass.”

“Whenever a big truck passes over the bridge, you will discover the bridge will shake in a way that will tell you something is wrong,” says a Road Safety Corps officer who pleaded for anonymity. “But this is not our concern. Ours is to maintain orderliness on the road, which we have been doing every day.”  He said they have discouraged motorist from forming three lanes on the bridge because of their knowledge of the bad state of the bridge. In the background, this reporter could still count three lanes.

“This road needs proper attention,” says Mr. Boniface Wilfred, a pastor. “There have been complaints of the bridge vibrating but nothing has been done about it. Is government waiting for the bridge to collapse before doing something?” he asked rhetorically.

 Weekly Trust observed that the slabs on service ducts on both sides of the bridge are missing, making it a home for some destitute and mentally ill people. Some of the slabs were removed by telecommunication companies to pass their cables, Weekly Trust learnt, but have not been replaced.

But the Federal Controller of Works and Housing, Kaduna State, Engineer M.A. Fowler said the Federal Ministry of Works has not received any complaint about the bad condition of the bridge. According to him, the only thing that has been reported to him by his staff was that the slabs are making noises, hence causing the vibration on the walkways. “And this is because some of the slabs on the service ducts are being removed and some are not properly placed, so when cars pass on the bridge, the slabs shake. This is the noise people hear and conclude that the bridge is vibrating,” he said.

Although Fowler said he could not remember the time the bridge was last rehabilitated, “We are going to replace the slabs and make some of them firmer.”

But the Head of Department of Civil Engineering, Kaduna Polytechnic, Engineer Danjuma Alhassan, said there is no way the slabs, which are at the edge of the bridge, will vibrate without vibration on the bridge itself. “The shaking of the service ducts should not affect the main road on the bridge,” says Danjuma. “And before the service ducts can shake, it means there is transmission from the bridge.”

He added that it is not all the noise on the bridge that should cause alarm. “When vehicles are on a bridge and the expansion joints make noises, it is not normally a problem, because they are made to allow for expansion. But there is a problem when there are cracks and unusual vibrations. This could weaken the bridge structure and lead to eventual failure.”

He said another problem that could cause vibration could be from the plies (pillars). “Bridges rest on plies and the bearing capacity of the soil around each could be different. So when vehicles begin to move on the bridge, one plies could sink earlier than the other. This means there is differential settlement and could lead to failure of the bridge,” Danjuma says.

He says before constructing a bridge, there is prediction of number of vehicles that will ply the road and that the planners could not have envisaged rapidly increasing vehicular movement which the road now experiences.  “The load used in designing the bridge could have been under-predicted.”

According to Danjuma, one major problem that might threaten the bridge could be lack of proper rehabilitation of the structure that is one of the first bridges of its scale in Kaduna.

Hamza Umar, a cyclist caught in the endless traffic, said: “Maybe the day the Kaduna Bridge will be repaired and put in proper shape will bring an end to the nightmares of people that have to cross it every day. Just as it shakes, that’s how I shake in fear, too, anytime I use the bridge.”