It was as a result of government’s effort to bring the dividends of democracy closer to the inhabitants of the FCT as well as improve the living standards of the indigenes and the original settlers of Abuja that necessitated the award of contracts to construct feeder and access roads connecting the FCT suburb communities of which the Byazhin link road in Kubwa, Abuja connecting the railway with the adjoining communities was awarded.
The road was purposed to, apart from serving the pupils and staff of the LEA primary school, Water Board, Health Center, and the surrounding villages and communities, provide a commercial gateway for easy movement of farm produce as well as other commercial commodities for the rural people – thus making foodstuff available while reducing the high cost of transporting them from the hinterland to the available markets.
Given the high cost of food stuff and even the scarcity, the Byazhin link road brought joy and a sigh of relief to the communities around. Thus, it was such unspeakable joy for the people when, eventually, the contractor, Akatech Engineering Construction, rolled their machines to the site.
However, no sooner had the construction work started than the contractor left the site, after merely scratching the surface of the earth and digging the gutters. This situation left the road worse than it had been and the people disillusioned as their hopes of having an improved road facility which would have eased a major part of their socioeconomic challenges. A mere two kilometer road which, ordinarily, would not take ten minutes now takes hours to pass through that road because it has lost its accessibility.
The people of Byazhin and the surrounding communities are in great pain as they agonise daily while making attempts at using the road. School children are at the risk of many dimensions as they try to make unpopular detours negotiating bush roads and part ways on their way to school, where danger could be lurking in these days of insecurity.
The state of the road is in complete apposition to the good efforts of not just the federal government to afford the FCT good facelift through quality road network, but also the Hon. Minister of the FCT, H.E. Bar. Ezenwo Nyesom Wike’s concerted efforts at taking infrastructural development to the nooks and crannies of the capital territory in his administration’s FCT Satellite Development Agency.
People of the community could not tell why the work on the road suddenly stopped. Tongues are wagging that there might have been some conspiratorial alliance or compromise between strong human factors and power wielding individuals in the community for which reason none of those big people have cared to ask questions about the state of the road.
The APC government and the Ministry of Federal Capital Territory are hereby called to the attention of the Byazhin – railway link road so as to ascertain the reason why the road has been left in such deplorable condition for close to four years and counting.
Okoro, Johnson Caleb
Writes from Abuja.
