RESIDENTS OF ABAKPA IN ENUGU BEMOAN SHODDY STREET ROAD CONTRACTS

Good road networks facilitate easy movements of people and goods and they also enhance the economic growth of a state or country.

Radio Nigeria took a tour of roads in Enugu metropolis to ascertain their condition with special attention to roads in Abakpa community.

The findings by Radio Nigeria, in this special report, reveals that the construction of street road in Ugboghe Abakpa Enugu by the Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi led administration has brought mixed feelings to residents of the area.

While some commend the government for the project, others lament the non provision of access slabs to adjourning streets.

In many countries, construction of good road networks is not a campaign issue as every candidate knows that it is one of the rights of the people who pay their taxes promptly.

Contracts for the construction of the roads are awarded to qualified and competent contractors to ensure quality work.

This is hardly the case in Nigeria as contracts for road project appear to be awarded to relations, political friends and cronies of those in authority who also collect kick backs.

The result is that most of them perform shoddy jobs and get away with it while the people the projects are meant for groan.

Examples of shoddy roads executed in Enugu metropolis include the One Day Road and Meniru Street at Agbani road constructed by the immediate past administration in the state that are now in a sorry state due to poor work.

The problem is not limited to the metropolis as some portions of the Ugwogo-Nike-Ikem Road in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area also built by the past administration are already begging for serious attention.

For the road constructed at Ama-etiti Street in Abakpa by the present administration in Enugu State, lack of access slabs on adjourning streets is hampering both human and vehicular movements.

Radio Nigeria spoke with some commercial tricycle riders, otherwise known as keke drivers, at the Abakaliki-Thinkers Corner Pit where the Vice Chairman of the pit, Mr. Chukwudi Nkwuda, commended the state government for constructing the road but appealed to the government to prevail on the contractors to tidy up the job.

“This place now, if motor wan (sic) enter, the motor go (sic) sleep there,” he said.

Two other keke drivers operating in the area, Messrs. Lawrence Odo and Gilbert Onyekachi, who said the road was strategic, blamed the problem on the road on the contractor.

A resident of Mbosi Street adjoining Ama-etiti Street, Mr. Celestine Ugwu said some people in the area were compelled to hire labour to fix some of the slabs because of the danger it posed to children.

“One student have (sic) already fall (sic) inside gutter, that thing motivated us to put the slab that day and we put more than six,” he said.

Miss Rosemary Nwodo, who had shop on other adjoining streets, M. Ugwu and St. Johns, said an individual provided temporary concrete across the gutter to enable people to get to their residences while Mr. Francis Eze of Achiakpa Street stated that private and commercial drivers in the area relied on a make shift wooden access, which had exposed the drivers to unnecessary suffering.

Miss Nwodo said “During the time they were building the road, they said that after the digging of the gutter that they will come and put the culvert but unfortunately it’s like their work stopped at Akara Junction, so it’s only one man, Mr. Ezinwa that did the culvert by himself.”

According to, Mr. Francis Eze “I do know that my own personal landlord did tell some of them to give; Achiakpa Street is a very short street to create an entrance using culvert, they agreed; I know he called some of them in his house here but they never did.

“Car owners cannot come in and go out comfortably, you can see the makeshift wood they did here and they have always fall (sic) in there and destroyed their vehicles,” Eze lamented.

Mr. Sunday Ezinwa, who financed the construction of access to M. Ugwu and St. John’s Streets, said he made efforts to get the contractor to do the needful, which proved abortive.

“The road was done hurriedly; they just came, tarred the road, they did the gutter haphazardly to the extent that the road that connected the St. John’s Crescent to Amaetiti we can’t enter again with our vehicles; no way you can pass through it.

“When I confronted them when they were working, they said they would put a slab for us; I thought it was true. At the end of the day, they abandoned the slabs and packed their things and went away,” Mr. Ezinwa stated unhappily.

The respondents stated that problems of the residents of the adjoining streets were made worse by the fact that tanker water vendors on which they depended so much could no longer get to them.

Some of the residents alleged that workers of the firm that handled the project demanded for money to provide access slabs while some alleged that the supervising Ministry might have colluded with the contractor to claim that access slabs for adjoining streets was not part of the contract terms.

Efforts to get the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Mr. Greg Nnaji, to react to the allegations did not yield any result.

ESTHER OGBU