Bridges that collapsed due to flood caused by torrential rains have cut off communities, leaving hundreds of motorists and pedestrians stranded in different parts of the North-east.
Multiple routes linking towns and villages in Borno, Yobe, Adamawa, Bauchi, Taraba and Gombe states and cutting across Nigeria’s borders to Chad, Cameroon and Niger, are affected by the development.
Prominent among these bridges are; the Azare Jama’are bridge along Kano – Maiduguri road, linking the North-east to the North=west; Madagali bridge on the Adamawa-Borno road, which links the North-east states to Chad and Cameroon.
Others are: Namnai bridge along the Jalingo-Wukari road; the Mayo Kam bridge on the Jalingo-Bali highway, linking the region with the North-central and South-east, Kukuru-Zaki bridge, and Jumbam, Jakusko bridge that cut off nine local government areas of Yobe State and the neighboring Niger Republic.
Travelers and commuters plying these routes have continued to groan due to the risk and tedious nature of the journeys, as they reroute through alternate roads that attract high transportation costs.
Heavy duty truck drivers, who regularly travel to or from South East, North-west and North-central complained that the development is taking a toll on them.
Timeline
On the 8th of August, 2024, a bridge on the most significant road in the region —Kano to Maiduguri expressway—was cut off by the heavy downpour that also destroyed many farmlands.
This had caused hardship to motorists and passengers traveling from Borno, Yobe, Bauchi and Gombe to the North-west states of Kano, Jigawa, Katsina, Sokoto Zamfara and Kaduna.
One of the drivers conveying passengers from Maiduguri to Kano lamented that motorists rerouting long distance roads in the region are now feeling the impact.
“So, the diversions as a result of collapsed bridges have made both interstates and intrastate journeys more complicated.
“The money spent to buy the very expensive fuel and the time to cover the additional long distance has affected us (drivers) all the way round. For instance, from Maiduguri to Geidam, was just N6,000 before the bridge was cut off, but we now charge N16,000 to cover the cost of an additional 350 kilometers.
“Maiduguri to Kano is now N20,000 against the N12,000 we charged previously, Geidam to Damaturu was N4,000, but it’s now N13,000,” he said.
Collaborating his claim, the deputy chairman, National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Geidam chapter, Yakubu Kura, said the additional distance from Maiduguri to Kano is 50 kilometers while the distance to Geidam from Maiduguri is 400 kilometers.
“My driver who traveled to Maiduguri from Geidam consumed 100 liters of petrol on the road and could not get passengers to return home,” he said.
Also, on the 3rd of September 2024, two critical bridges – the Namnai along the Jalingo-Wukari road and the Mayo Kam bridge on the Jalingo-Bali highway collapsed.
These collapsed bridges connecting Taraba to South-east, which served as key economic lifelines in the region have plunged residents and commuters into turmoil.
A passenger, who plies the road on a daily basis, said the collapsed bridge subjected motorists and commuters to delays and heavy financial burdens.
“Local ferries are now making brisk business at both edges of the collapsed bridge. Drivers are forced to pay N8,000 to ferry their vehicles across the edge,” he said.
One of the passengers lamented that the cost of transportation has forced many people to stop traveling, unless when necessary.
“The routine journeys have turned into an ordeal, a situation that has disrupted supply chains and increased the prices of commodities,” he said.
A motorist, Abdullahi Balla said the collapsed bridges have cut them off from other parts of the state and the North-east.
“Most medium scale traders have given up their businesses due the rise in transport fare. It’s almost impossible to transport your goods from Kano to Taraba, because you will not make any profit,” he said.
On the 20th of August, 2024, the Adamawa-Borno border link bridge in the Madagali Local Government Area collapsed, cutting off the two states and access to neighboring Cameroon.
The bridge, which is the lifeline of the two states, blocked cement trucks and vehicles from taking food stuff from Adamawa to Maiduguri, a development which has commercial implications for local and international trade.
Passengers and commercial drivers plying the road complained of hike in transport fare and difficulty in accessing their destinations due to bad roads and a long distance.
Commercial drivers also expressed frustration that the commuters couldn’t understand with them.
“The hike in fuel price and diversions have attracted long distances with more fuel consumption. I expect passengers to understand the situation and bear with us. Unfortunately, we always argue over the cost,” he said.
He appealed to the federal government to intervene and save people from untold hardship.
On the 31st of August, 2024, a bridge on the federal road that connects nine local government areas and Niger Republic to Nigeria was cut off by another heavy downpour. This happened barely two days after the alternative road also collapsed.
The incident has forced Machina, Nguru, Karasuwa, Bade, Jakusko and Yusufari, Geidam, Yunusari and Bursari local government areas to either use canoe or travel through Hadejia in Jigawa State, a distance of over five hundred kilometers to access Damaturu, the Yobe State capital.
Ali Yusuf said the majority of the travelers in the affected area have expressed worry and fear as there are no life jackets for them, and the volume of the water keeps rising.
Although no life was lost in the area, Muhammad Auwal, a driver, said the government needed to quickly intervene to ameliorate the suffering of the people.
Travelers await FG, states govts’ assistance
In the last two months, federal and state governments have continued to promise plans to ameliorate the suffering of the people affected by the collapsed bridges.
However, of these six most viable bridges cut off by the flood, none of them has so far been fixed.
Inspecting the collapsed Kano-Maiduguri highway in Guskuri, Governor Bala Mohammed highlighted the economic significance of the road to the region, while calling on the federal government to offer assistance.
“If they are unable to address the problem, we will take action to implement remedial or permanent measures, as we did during the last rainy season,” he said.
Also, the Taraba State government, through its governor, Aminu Alkali, promised to partner with the Northeast Development Commission (NEDC) to fix Namnai bridge which disconnected the state from the southern part of the country.
In an interview with Weekend Trust, the Managing Director of NEDC, Mohammed Alkali, who visited collapsed bridges in almost all the six states, said the commission would intervene through collaboration with the state governments to reconstruct some of the bridges.
He, however, noted that the NEDC does not own any of the collapsed bridges and that the role of the commission is only to intervene and assist where necessary within their capacity and resources.
“Each state has two to five bridges that have given up and our role is to see that we help in the reconstruction so that people can pass.
“We made such interventions in places like Jere, where they suffered for over 40 years without bridge, but we constructed the bridge and road network that connected all the seven towns in the area,” he said.
Meanwhile, experts interviewed estimated that the reconstruction of the bridges would cost the government hundreds of billions of naira. The federal government said 148 LGAs in 34 states were at risk of severe flooding between April and November.
The government listed Adamawa, Akwa-Ibom, Anambra, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Delta, Ebonyi, Edo, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, and Kogi as states at risk of severe flooding.
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