Residents ask FCTA to construct Kugbo bridge at night

Residents of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) who ply the AYA-Nyanya-Mararaba road have suggested that the ongoing construction of a pedestrian bridge at Kugbo be done at night.

The construction work along the route had caused gridlock since the beginning of the year, causing workers and businessmen man-hours and stress.

Motorists had thus expressed dissatisfaction over the manner of the construction, saying it was quite slow and deliberately done to cause hardship to residents.

Mr. Dan Bauchi said “the project is coming late, the project should be done during the month of December last year when many residents travelled out of the city for Christmas holiday and there were no plenty cars plying the road. Or the work should have been done in the night since there are a lot of vehicles plying the road during the day.

“The road is even worse on Wednesday, which is Nyanya market day. People come from different parts of the country to sell their wares at the market on Wednesdays. The traffic jam used to be massive on Nyanya market days, which sometimes, starts from AYA on Goodluck Jonathan Expressway,” he said.

Bauchi urged the FCTA to hasten up the construction of the pedestrian bridge and complete other ongoing road projects along the route to ease up the gridlock.

Another resident, Onyenma Okoro, said apart from working on the pedestrian bridge at night, the FCTA had the option of completing the Apo-Karshi road so that commuters could have had an alternative route, going and coming back from work.

“This traffic leads to a lot of accidents at times because people are stressed up and they just drive anyhow and that can lead to accident. Some vehicles get overheated because they have stayed long in the jam; that kills the car engine and it is really causing us a lot of damages” he said.

Our reporters observed that some motorists and cyclists resorted to driving against traffic as a way of beating the jam.

When contacted, the FCT Secretary for Transport, Comrade Kayode Opeifa, said the construction of the Kugbo bridge was not responsible for the heavy traffic jam along that axis, adding that the traffic had been on the road even before the commencement of the project.

“There is nowhere in the world that bridges are constructed in the night by any engineers because their work is more effective in day time so that the work can go smoothly.

“I have been there myself to see things for myself, and I don’t agree that the ongoing work is causing any gridlock, if you can recall, there has been an existing military checkpoint there and which also contribute to the traffic, not the construction work,” he said.

Credit: Daily Trust