Motorists call for speedy work on Dutsen-Usman Dam Road
Motorists plying the Dutsen-Bwari road have called for speedy work on a section of the road to address the traffic snarl being experienced on a daily basis. Our correspondent reports that the FCT Administration had last year re-awarded a section of the road from Dutsen Alhaji to Usman dam by SCC construction company. The company […]
Motorists plying the Dutsen-Bwari road have called for speedy work on a section of the road to address the traffic snarl being experienced on a daily basis.
Our correspondent reports that the FCT Administration had last year re-awarded a section of the road from Dutsen Alhaji to Usman dam by SCC construction company.
The company had in November promised the FCT minister, Nyesom Wike, to finish the project by the end of last December.
However, our correspondent, who drove through the road at the weekend, reports that work is still ongoing in one of the lanes of the road.
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It was observed that the lane where the work was going was completely closed to the motorists as those going or coming had to use a single lane.
This, Abuja Metro observed, had been causing serious traffic jam on a daily basis.
One of the taxi drivers plying the road, Ndagi Usman, said the work had been causing serious delays for the motorists.
He said the section of the road which would ordinarily not take 10 minutes, now takes about two hours to pass as a result of the traffic.
He said, ‘’How do you expect some of us that are commercial drivers to make it when you are to spend about two hours on a section of the road that is not even supposed to take 10 minutes?’’
He pleaded with the construction company to speed up the work to ease traffic congestion.
A civil servant, Mrs Gloria Joseph, told Abuja Metro that the situation had been terrible for the past three weeks when the construction firm shut the other lane of the road.
She said, ‘’When you are going to work in the morning, the traffic is something else and when you are coming back the situation becomes worse because it is usually at night. Something needs to be done urgently.’’
Our correspondent further learnt that the situation has been causing accidents along the road, killing some motorists.
John Isah, a resident of Dustsen-Baupman, a community along the road, said the section of the road under construction is sloppy and that heavy duty trucks often fail brakes and cause accidents, especially when descending the Usman Dam hill.
He said, “It is dangerous for traffic to build at that section of the road because of the sloppy nature of the road. Many trucks had been involved in accidents at that sloppy section of the road and those accidents are always deadly. God forbids I can’t imagine a truck failing brake during this traffic snarl on the road.’’
Abuja Metro further reports that motorists going to Kaduna and other northern states like Katsina, Kano now make use of the road to link the Abuja -Kaduna express road at Jere in Kaduna State.
An engineer in the community, who spoke with Abuja Metro on condition anonymity, assured the work would soon be completed and handed over to the FCT Administration.
He pleaded with motorists to bear with the situation, reminding them that it is temporary and for their good.