
Nick Agule
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Driving into Abuja from Keffi becomes a nightmare at Mararaba all day. The traffic comes to a standstill and then navigates at a snail speed. It usually takes anything from half an hour to a full hour or more to cover just 2 or 3 kilometres!
It’s a dual carriageway, but there are 4 reasons responsible for this daily gridlock:
- There’s a market operating right on top of the road! I mean, who allows this? Imagine an active market trading on the M4 motorway leading into London or on the I-95 interstate leading into DC, and the authorities do nothing about it. Yet our leaders too suffer this needless gridlock without thinking it’s time to close the market and barricade the roadsides to prevent trading on the road to allow free flow of traffic!
- There’s a feeder road that empties its traffic into the main highway, thus constituting obstruction to the traffic on the main highway. This feeder road can be redirected to the Nyanya bridge to allow for free flow of traffic on the main highway.
- There’s a U-turn. Close the U-turn and redirect traffic at the Nyanya bridge in the short term or build an underpass in the medium/long term to prevent vehicles from turning into traffic towards Abuja, thus grinding it to a stop.
- There are potholes that slow down traffic. Simply just fill up the potholes to allow smooth driving without stopping to navigate the potholes.
For years now, motorists have been spending from half an hour to an hour in this needless gridlock, thus losing billions of Naira daily in additional petrol costs, loss of time, stress on humans and vehicles, etc.
Our leaders also suffer this gridlock as their siren blaring convoys are also forced to come to a standstill.
But for inexplicable reasons, nobody is taking the simple steps as above to sanitise a major highway into Nigeria’s capital city. The trading activities on the road even constitute a huge security risk posed to the VIPs who are forced to stop at the gridlock.
The following authorities are hereby called upon to take urgent action to sanitise and secure the Keffi-Mararaba-Abuja highway:
- It’s a federal road, so the minister for works needs to take primary ownership to sanitise the road.
- It’s also a major arterial road into the FCT, so the FCT minister also needs to get involved. This road is bringing traffic from the NE, NC, SE & SS regions of Nigeria into the FCT. The minister can’t say it’s in Nasarawa state, so not his business!
- The minister for defence and the chief of defence staff also need to take interest in this road. The 177 guards battalion situated in Keffi provides security for the presidential villa. If they need to respond to an emergency or security situation at the villa, the traffic gridlock at Mararaba will stall their rapid response for at least half an hour, which is quite dangerous!
- The inspector general of police has to understand the security implications of a crowded market on a major gateway to the nation’s capital with high-value security targets plying the route daily!
- The FRSC is also a stakeholder. If they are responsible for road safety, then how safe is a highway with an active market trading on it?
- Lastly, the Nasarawa state government who hosts the road must be up to its responsibilities. If the primary duty of government is to provide security and welfare to the citizens, the road provides portent danger to both objectives. Imagine a truck experiences mechanical failure and the number of lives in the market that’ll be crushed. Worse is if it’s a fuel-laden truck that bursts into flames on impact! Imagine the security risk of a market on a major highway even to the governor himself who must use the road to access the FCT.
Something urgently needs to be done now to save lives instead of addressing press conferences after lives are already lost!
Nick Agule is a Nigerian citizen and a public affairs analyst.
Monday, 13th January 2025
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