Motorists and other users of the Warri-Sapele highways linking four Niger Delta States have called on the Federal Government to urgently carry out palliative repairs on some terribly bad portions of the road.
Tribune Online reports that the two critical federal express roads linking Benin and Warri have become a nightmare for users in the past two months.
Several unwary heavy-duty vehicles belonging to companies are daily trapped in the muddy gullies with some capsizing over into the Bush with their wares.
Man hours are lost daily as motorists now spend as much as four to five hours to get to Benin or Warri.
As of Tuesday evening, checks revealed that many commuters were being trapped in the gullies at the risk of men of the underworld.
A peace advocate and solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Chief Robinson Ariyo, in a chat with Tribune Online on Tuesday, described the harrowing situation as “completely unbearable.”
“The death trap called Warri/Sapele/Benin road. Let us all add our voices, PDP, APC, SDP etc. This is completely unbearable!!!
“Such a road so critical to the Federal Government, which links four Niger Delta states, shouldn’t be left in that sorry state.
“It’s a federal road, but there is a way state governments fix such roads and recoup the money expended back from the FG.
“Governor Okowa should do some palliative work on it in the meantime before hoodlums begin to make a piecemeal of motorists in that road at night,” he pleaded.
Tribune Online recalls that past governments in Delta State have always been carrying out palliative measures perhaps annually on bad portions of the road often after hues and cries of the people.
A driver with a national daily, who declined being identified, told Tribune Online that it was callous for such a critical road in an oil-producing region to be left in such a parlous state.
The driver, who plies the road deep in the night at least once a week while conveying dailies to Bayelsa and Port Harcourt, said he had been trapped by rain and mud severally on the spots while headed from Lagos.
“We have to meander through one village to link up with Warri each time I’m coming from Lagos axis.
“On several occasions, I got to Warri and PH very late to deliver my consignments just because of road as my car developed faults.
“There is really nothing else we gain from government except roads. And now the roads are becoming impassable. Where do we go,” he queried.
He called the Federal Government to fix the road permanently once and for all instead of the yearly palliative rituals.
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