Workers and traders plying the Calabar-Bakassi Federal Road in Calabar, on Monday got stranded when youth in the area blocked the road due to its deplorable state.
The youth under the aegis of Atimbo Youth Forum blocked the road and stopped vehicular movements.
The road is the only access link used by trucks conveying cement from the Mfamosing plant of the United Cement Company of Nigeria Limited.
The road also serves traders who go to the Ikang beach in Bakassi to transact business, while the state government has a housing estate in Akpabuyo for civil servants.
Leader of the youths in the area, Mr. Emmanuel Uduak said they decided to block the road in order to draw the attention of the state government to the deplorable state of the road, which he said has remained a death trap despite several promises to fix it.
“We have decided that until the state government intervenes, we will not allow any vehicle pass because it is so bad that anything can happen. We thought UniCem was responsible for it, but they said the state government collects N12, 800 per truck from them daily. So, the government should come and do something.”
Uduak further said that although it was a federal road, the state government had said it would rehabilitate it, adding that the promise prompted trucks loading cement from the UniCem factory to accept paying the levy.
He said: “But as you can see, the road has continued to get dilapidated without government doing anything about it, a situation that has prompted youths in this area to block it in order to draw government attention.”
But in a swift reaction, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Mr. Rekpene Bassey, threatened to arrest the youths, saying they posed threat to peace in the area.
While noting that it was a federal road, Bassey agreed that the state government collects levy from the trucks which are used in maintaining the road.
“The road is the responsibility of the federal government. Although the state government collects levy from trucks plying the road, the money has always been used in rehabilitating the same road.
“Do you know how much the state government spends on that road? That road has been consistently rehabilitated and each time, it gets bad again. Do you know how much it cost to construct an asphalt road? And that is not the only road in the state,” Bassey argued.
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