Commuters groan, urge NDDC, FERMA, Edo govt to fix Benin-Warri bypass

Among the numerous federal roads needing an urgent attention is the Benin-Warri bypass. This is because several portions of the express road have become death traps for motorists plying the road.

On daily basis, avoidable accidents occur in the ever busy road often involving articulated trucks belonging to a popular company and other road users.

Most vehicles belonging to private transport companies now find it pretty difficult to ply the route and now prefer to go through Benin metropolis where they are at the mercy of a crazy traffic snarl.

A visit last Thursday across the bypass by the Nigerian Tribune revealed the horrible state of the dual carriage road. To negotiate into the bypass from Warri axis, vehicles have to exercise great caution not to fall off sideways as gullies, with  pools of water, have taken over the entire bend.

At a settlement occupied by trailer drivers mostly from the northern part, of the country, the story is most despicable. The carriage leading to Warri has become impassable and worst still, articulated vehicles have turned the road to a parking lot.

The impassable portion of the express road is partitioned by red-colour pool of water in the gullies created by neglect.

A young petty trader, who spoke to the Nigerian Tribune gave the name of the area as Sabo. Abdulahi said “na so we dey suffer hear o! You no see the trailers for the road? But the bad road dey make we sell market well well now o.”

One of the road users, Mr Stephen Ajayi, a Quantity Surveyor, put the blame at the doorstep of interventionist agency such as the NNDC and the Niger Delta Ministry as failing in their responsibility to fix the road before it deteriorated to that level.

Another road user, Mr Ezekiel Mosugu, wondered rhetorically, ‘‘What is NNDC Ministry doing with the billion dollars allocation?”

Betty Idialu of the Nigerian Observers, who uses the road regularly, described the experience as horrible and a perpetual nightmare.

“That Sabo portion of the bypass road is unacceptable. Are we in a jungle? Must everything collapse before they come to budget huge money to fix it? Or must more innocent people die before they come to fix it,” she lamented.

Meanwhile, users of the failed road, mostly drivers of articulated trucks, were seen dangerously facing each other to manoeuvre and wade through the remaining lane serving those going to and from Warri.

As of Tuesday, October 31, when this reporter plied the bypass again, that portion of the road has eventually worsened, as vehicles were seen taking detour into a community through which they connect the expressway in front.

Vehicles, which strayed towards the terribly bad portion before discovering that there’s no more access, were seen making frantic effort to make a u-turn with a view to following the detour.

No doubt, danger looms on the bypass unless the people concerned expedite action to fix it.