It is a highly unpredictable stretch of road. Commuters have frustrating tales to tell, having to use the unavoidable Abuja-Karu-Nyanya-Mararaba Expressway daily.
Whether they are going to the Abuja city centre in the morning or returning after finishing the day’s job, the experience most times remains frustrating for them.
A simple vehicular breakdown, rain drops, deliberate wrong parking of articulated vehicles and accidents that are frequent, all can combine to force commuters to pass the night on the road.
A dreaded stretch of this road, Mogadishu Barracks-Kugbo-Nyanya
Bridge, has claimed many lives. This is on the return side from the city to suburbs such as Karu, Nyanya and many settlements like Mararaba and One Man’s Village in Nasarawa State. Multiple accidents, sometimes involving up to 13 vehicles, are frequent on this bridge.
The sloping, winding, slippery stretch is aptly described as the “slope of death” by those who ply the road frequently.
One of the worst tragedies on the deadly stretch occurred in July 2012 when multiple accidents claimed up to 25 lives just a few metres from the popular Kugbo Furniture Market.
The driver of an articulated vehicle conveying iron rods was said to have lost control of the vehicle, which crashed into 10 others, including two fully-loaded commercial buses.
On a week-by-week basis, it has become normal for accidents to occur on this stretch. Much of the danger lies in the steeped nature of the road, which makes driving at top speed a big risk.
But, trust Abuja drivers. They ignore the warnings limiting speed to between 40 and 50kms per hour, galloping down the road as though tomorrow will never come.
Markus Dangana, 41, has been driving in Abuja since 2004. The commercial bus driver tells this reporter that some drivers actually use the dangerous stretch to compete among themselves.
He says, “If you look at this road, you will observe that it is hilly at the Mogadishu Barracks flyover. Now, as you drive towards Kugbo, you notice that the vehicle begins to descend very fast.
“The acceleration from the hilly point can push a vehicle to as much as 100km or more per hour as you descend, without pressing your throttle any further.
“This tells you the sloping nature of the road. It is very dangerous. Should your breaks fail or your tyres burst for example, a crash is unavoidable.”
Dangana’s picture is scary enough. Yet, some daring drivers have accelerated their speedometers to as high as 120km on the steeped area.
“The speed limit set by the Federal Road Safety Commission for cars on normal road is 100km per hour. It is a big risk already for anyone to drive at 100km on this Abuja-Kugbo-Nyanya Road .
“But people ignore the danger and throttle to 120km or more per hour on the road,” a construction worker, Kanu Ikenna, tells this reporter.
Many of the accidents claiming lives here are caused by articulated vehicles. Often, they experience break failures, leaving the drivers with no other options than to gallop down the steeped road.
As the vehicles run wild, the drivers either ram them into rocks, ditches or crash into cars and buses downhill at the base of the Karu Bridge.
James Atanu, an FRSC official, says, “Heavy traffic build-up downhill, especially during the evening rush hours, means that the smaller vehicles become easy targets for the trucks or trailers. A galloping truck on the sloping area is like a bomb waiting to explode. There is no break, no control and the driver is a confused man.”
The police and the FRSC have monitoring units in the area, established primarily to check the excesses of drivers, but their efforts have not yielded significant results.
In 2011, the Federal Capital Territory Administration tried to regulate the movement of articulated vehicles within the territories by restricting them to between 10pm and 5am.
In a bid to enforce the regulation, it provided parking grounds at various entry points to Abuja, where heavy duty vehicles could park, awaiting their approved time of movement.
However, the regulation is observed more in breach by both officials of the administration and truck drivers.
“Truck drivers are not obeying that rule. They are still driving during unapproved hours, causing accidents and killing people.
“Those who try to observe the rule, park along the roads in the city, instead of doing so at the designated parking grounds.
“They create another problem for us in the process by causing traffic hold-ups,” one resident, Audu Musa, laments.
An official of the FCTA Transport Secretariat, Sani Kudu, admits the administration is aware of the “challenges on the Kugbo-Nyanya road axis, especially the frequent accidents. Something is being done about it.”
He says that the administration is planning alternative routes and bye-passes to reduce the heavy traffic on the road.
“Many of these vehicles are just passing through Abuja to their final destinations. Abuja is not the final destination for a lot of them.
“Alternative routes will create diversions for them to reduce the risks Abuja commuters face daily.
“There is also a committee in place working with our Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIOs) to enforce the time approved for trucks to drive through the city.
“Stubborn drivers are penalised when arrested; so nothing is given to chance,” the official claims.
While all that is being done for commuters, the anxiety lingers. They wake up in the morning and their first telephone call is probably to someone already on the road.
“How is the road this morning?” they inquire.
In the evening, the same question is certain to repeat itself, “How is Kugbo road?” They never know. It is an unpredictable route
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