Residents of Sunnyvile and Kabusa in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have cried out to the Minister of FCT, Nyesom Wike, to save them from the abandoned road projects that have made life unbearable.
The residents said their road had been abandoned for over five years by contractors that only built drainages in some parts and left the road in a worse state.
They said they had complained to the FCT government on several occasions and contributed to make the road bearable but it continued to deteriorate, causing a lot of hardship for residents and giving opportunities for hoodlums to attack residents at night.
Residents have also advised the Minister to tour around the FCT and understand what the problems actually are rather than sticking to the reports submitted to him by staff members of the FCT.
Chairman, Santos Estate, Dr Kunle Egbeleke said: “The contractors came and levelled the road a bit and returned years later to construct a culvert then left and never came back. I don’t know what stopped the project but I believe that if they had been mobilised, they were supposed to have finished the project two years ago.
“It has been terrible, sometimes when you take a cab from town, some of the cab men would insist on dropping you off on the way and not your destination because of the bad road.
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“We suffer from a lot of repairs on our vehicles because of the road and servicing regularly which is expensive. We have complained several times to the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) but we only get promises that are never fulfilled and now we tax ourselves regularly to enable us to patch the road constantly when it gets too bad to make it a bit motorable. We patched it recently during the dry season but as soon as the rain came it got worse again.”
He added: “Now when you leave Sunnyvile and head towards City View Estate, because the road is so bad along the vicinity, hoodlums come out from around 7.30, block the road and start robbing people.’’
“We are calling on Wike to go round himself and check the state of the FCT because as long as the same directors are there, they would still maintain the same status quo. He should go around himself and not trust the report he is given because after over five years of the abandoned road, we are tired.
“We would appreciate it if Wike can come to our aid. Something needs to be done because this is Abuja and Sunnyvile area is not the outskirts or suburbs but middle of Abuja so having this kind of road does not fit a place like Abuja.”
A resident of City View Estate, Rachel Aliyu explained to our correspondent that the road is slippery and dangerous during the rainy season and too dusty in the dry season.
She said: “The bad road is really affecting residents, the bad road and gallops spoil cars and it’s even more difficult to ply the road on motorcycles.
“It’s difficult during harmattan because there is so much dust. When the rain comes, the road becomes very muddy and slippery. With all that the Minister has been saying, we really hope he does his best and helps us fix the road because it is very important to us.”