Commuters, motorists decry delays in completion of Calabar-Uyo federal highway

The perennial delays witnessed in the reconstruction of the failed Calabar-Uyo federal highway have taken a toll on the health and resources of motorists, travellers and even residents of the road.

In the last two months, there have been vehicular breakdowns which compounded traffic snarls on the road as it has been for over ten years.

As a result, travellers have often spent five or six hours to Uyo from Calabar or from Calabar to Uyo in a journey that used to be one hour.

Over three weeks ago, following this heartrending and tortuous journey on this road, the Minister of Works, David Umahi took journalists to assess the extent of failures on the road.

Pained by the slow pace of work, he had ordered that contractors return to site within a week and resume work to ameliorate the plights and suffering of Nigerians on the only connecting link road to southeastern states.

One of the motorists, Akpan Moses, a frequent traveller on the road, said ever since the minister returned to Abuja, the contractors hardly work.

Moses said the rains have helped to completely make the dilapidated road impassable.

He said hundreds of trucks bearing bags of cement, granites, rods and other heavy objects often fall due to the terrible state of the road.

“And when this happens, traffic flow is blocked. Long queues of trucks and other vehicles would be seen and the health of passengers are usually threatened having spent hours on bad spots”, he said.

A community leader on the Odukpani axis of the road, Etinyin Ekpenyong Effiom said some of the land owners who protested nonpayment of compensations which partially accounted for delays, have now been paid, and they were no longer threatening the construction workers.

The motorists and commuters strongly appealed to the federal government to release outstanding funds to contractors to mobilize back to the portions which the different tractors are working on.

The minister had assured that the road would be completed by December 2024, but an official of one of the construction firms who pleaded anonymity said the government has not paid a substantial a substantial enough amount to enable them work effectively.