Road users, Ohafia residents and their neighbours have urged the Abia State governor, Alex Otti, to rehabilitate the damaged Nmuri Hills axis of Umuahia-Bende-Ohafia road, saying it had become a death trap.
They spoke exclusively to LEADERSHIP Sunday yesterday in Ohafia against the backdrop of recent multiple accidents which claimed the lives of over 15 persons and left many others seriously injured in the area.
They argued that though the road is federal government-owned, nothing should stop the governor from intervening on it as he had been doing on such roads in the state to bring relief and succour to the people.
“I strongly believe that if he can magnanimously engage in building a new bridge across Igwu river at Ozu Abam on the road, he can equally extend the same gesture to the axis,” a motorist, Ola Egwu, said.
A businessman, Kalu Amogu Nnochin, noted with concern how the axis has become a deathtrap and continued to worsen during the rainy season, adding that the earlier it was rehabilitated the better.
Etim Akpabio, a transporter from one of the neighbouring communities in Cross River State, said many injuries had been recorded, and many lives and materials worth millions of naira had been lost in accidents in the axis.
Similarly, Nwoke Onwuka, a farmer said, “The danger the axis has posed since the contactor handling the rehabilitation of the road unceremoniously abandoned the job over two years ago.”
They all maintained that with the rainy season now around the corner, the need to rehabilitate the axis had arisen and appealed to the authorities, “whether state or federal to act quickly”.
It would be recalled that when his attention was drawn to the axis during his last monthly media chat tagged “Governor Otti Speaks to Abians,” Otti promised to take up the matter with the minister of works, Dave Umahi.
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