By Tina George, Minna
Niger state government is mulling the idea of closing down the Minna-Bida aroad to prevent further deterioration as well as enable contractors to continue with their work.
Disclosing this when he toured some Federal and state owned roads, Governor Abubakar Sani Bello said that the Minna-Bida needed urgent attention as the bridge between Sabon Daga and Kataeregi, had collapsed due to the heavy traffic flow of articulated vehicles on the road.
The Governor stated that the decision to shut down the road was coming from the inability of the Federal government to meet their part of the agreement that made the state government to lift the initial ban on trailers and articulated vehicles on its roads.
Recall that the state government closed down the Minna-Bida road to articulated vehicles and the Federal government had agreed in a meeting to provide immediate emergency intervention, especially on Bida-Lapai-Lambata and Mokwa-Tegina-Birnin-Gwari trunk A roads.
ASHENEWSONLINE reported the governor on Tuesday threatening to shut down all roads in the state if the Federal government failed to intervene in state roads as promised.
The federal government also pledged to support the state government to repair the remaining parts of Minna-Suleja road, particularly from Farin Doki-Minna which formed the basis for the temporal re-opening of the earlier closed road.
The Governor lamented over the state of articulated vehicles that ply the roads across the state, saying that they are the major cause of the deterioration.
On the Minna-Bida road, Sani Bello said he will remain focused on reconstructing the road but that it would again be closed to articulated vehicles since the state government was yet to see the intervention of the Federal government as agreed.
He added that closing down the road will speed up the project and avoid wasting of resources.
“We agreed with the federal government that the state government should reopen the roads and give them two weeks to enable them carry out some emergency repair work on the Bida-Lapai-Lambata road so as to ease pressure on the Minna-Bida road and to also allow the contractors do their work.
“But two weeks have passed and nothing has been done, the situation has remained the same. You can see that the situation is getting worse everyday and we are running out of patience.
“As a government we can not fold our hands and see our people suffer everyday on this road, we will shut it down any moment from now to enable the contractor return to work. This time around there will be no going back until the Minna-Bida road is fixed”.
Meanwhile, commuters have been finding it difficult in plying the Minna-Bida road as all routes to the road have been blocked.
Currently, there are heavy gridlock on the Minna-Bida and Minna-Zugeru road leaving motorists stranded.
