BAD ROAD: KADUNA COMMUNITY ERECTS SIGNBOARD OF ANGER ON LIVE ELECTRIC POLE.
From Noah Ebije, Kaduna.
Residents of a Kaduna community have hanged thier written complaints on a live electric pole to tell whoever may be concerned that they are visibly angry about the state of roads leading to and fro their community called Nasarawa.
But when the name, Nasarawa is mentioned, many Nigerian minds are likely to go to Nasarawa State or one of the local government areas in Kano State bearing the same name.
The Nasarawa in Kaduna metropolis, is a slum, without good roads, good water and regular electricity supply over the years.
The community with reasonable voting population have threatened to boycott the forthcoming election if these social amenities are not put in place for them.
The residents are boiling with anger, but instead of carrying placards to protest over the situation, they decided to put up a signboard on an electric pole, carrying written words of the level of their anger and disappointment with the past and successive government which neglected the community.
Three major roads lead to Nasarawa community; one is through where Nigeria Breweries Plant is located in Kakuri side of Kaduna city, another route to the slum is through Gwamina Awan General Hospital through Trikinia area, while the road comes through the Flour Mills by the popular Nnamdi Azikiwe Bypass at the Western end of the metropolis.
The Nasarawa residents are presently complaining of accopmpanying trouble festered on them by the rough and bad roads.
The roads are raising uncontrolable dust into their living rooms and shops on daily basis. And during raining season, they are cut off from the rest of the town becuase culvets and bridges linking the areas are usually flooded whenever it rains.
This is the situation they found themselves over the years, but in 2011 during the administration of the former governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa who later died in an helicopter crash, a good move was made to give the community accessible roads. The project was abandoned after Yakowa’s death.
However, our it was observed that all the culvets constructed along the roads are still in good shape at the time of filling this report.
Speaking in an interview with Daily Sun the youth leader, Nasarawa District, Mr. Ibrahim Daga, said the community has sent several delegations to the incumbent Governor Nasir El-rufai over their plights, but to no avail.
But the State Government had in 2018 budget earmarked N7.3 billion for the construction of township roads.
A breakdown of the budget showed that N248 million was set aside for road maintenance across the state, N1.5 billion for trunk roads, N480 million for ring roads and N250 million for box culverts.
It also showed that N2.1 billion would be spent on the supply and installation of street lights and N23 million for street light maintenance, while N4.9 billion was allocated for surface dressing of roads.
It added that N565 million would be spent on beautification of bus rapid transit lanes, and road pavements phase two, and N39 million for erosion control.
However, while presenting N155bn budget estimate for the 2019 fiscal year, El-Rufai said, “The 2019-2021 multi-year budget is hinged on the 2016 zero-based budget principles and is tailored towards the actualisation of our State Development Plan 2016-2020 as stated earlier.
He said, “The key targets from a fiscal perspective are to ensure the actualisation of the development priorities of the government as articulated in the State Development Plan and respective Sector Implementation Plans.”
Meanwhile, Nasarawa youth leader further explained the plight of the residents in the community, “Before now Nasarawa is a community that so many people like to settle, but now, people are running away from the community, many rooms are left unoccupied because of bad environment arising from bad roads leading to the area.
“These bad roads have brought dust to our houses and the rooms especially during dry season as we are experiencing now. If I open my rooms, you will see that dust has taken over the rooms.
“The dust has also caused many people in the area sickness like cough. Last month (December), two of my daughters were hospitalised because the dust caused them serious cough.
“If you also take a look at every roof of the houses in the community, they are overtaken by the dust, making the roofs to look rusty.
“I still remember vividly effort made by the last administration of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to give us good roads, but that administration could not complete the roads before they left office.
“Today we are appealing to government of the All Progressive Congress (APC) to help us reconstruct the roads. The APC government promised to do the roads for us when they were coming to office in 2015.
“But more than three years in office, the government has abandoned our community. You can see why we put our anger and grievances on that signboard at the strategic position, by the Bus Stop, to draw the attention of the government and those that are concerned to remember the promise they made to give us good roads.
“The election is around the corner, and these politicians have started coming here to campaign again. We may not come out on election day to vote because we are suffering. We don’t have other social amenities like clean drinking water and steady electricity supply. The only source of clean water here is from the bore-hole dug by some well to do individuals in the community.
“As the youth leader of this district which comprises Nasarawa, Trikania, Kudenda and Kokoriko communities, I have been appealing to the residents, especially the youths to ensure that they go out on election day to vote in order to elect whom they think can bring development to the community.
“But they keep on saying that they are fed up with unfulfilled promises of the politicians.
“I am even afraid to call for meeting these days because I know that I will be embarrassed at such meeting looking at the fact that they have been agaitating for good roads over the years.
“It may interest you to know that we sent several representatives to the State Governor, Malam Nasir El-rufai concerning these roads, but no response as I speak to you”.
On the of security in the community, Mr. Daga said the area has been peaceful, owing to the vigilance of the civilian Joint Task Force (JTF).
Some of the residents in Nasarawa also spoke about the bad roads. For Mr. Cletus Ipama, an Okada rider, he would ensure that he votes in the forthcoming election for a candidate that will bring development to the area.
According to him, “As a Nigerian, I make sure that I vote for a candidate that I know that he will repair these our roads for us. The write-up on the signboard is in order because there is no more sanity in our community because of bad roads. It is even worse during raining season. So we are calling on government to come to our rescue.
Another Okada rider, Mr. Johnson Clement said, “We are suffering in Nasarawa here because the roads are in bad shape. All these roads lead to the central city, but we are finding it difficult to travel out of this community as a result of bad roads. The bad roads are even pushing some residents out of the community. So government should come to our help as quickly as possible before everything turn worse than this”.
END.
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