It was stress and agony for passengers and motorists plying the Onitsha-Owerri Road as three trucks broke down and caused a heavy gridlock on the ever-busy road on Sunday.
The three trucks broke down at the bad portion of the Obosi end of the road. Two of them happened at the Onitsha outward bound lane which totally blocked the lane of vehicles moving out of Onitsha while the other coming from the River Niger bridge was said to have failed brakes and crashed at the same scene.
The incident left only a small portion for vehicles coming from the River Niger end of the road.
One of the drivers of the broken-down trucks, a Mercedes 911, with registration number AH761UWN, who identified himself as Chuks, said his vehicle had shaft problem as he was navigating the bad portions of the road at around 6:55am.
To worsen the situation, touts in their large numbers, took over the portion left for motorists and started extorting and forcing motorists to part with a certain fee, depending on the vehicle.
Our correspondent observed that as of 9am, a standstill had occurred on both lanes of the road as the situation became more chaotic because of the unruly behaviour by some motorists, especially commercial drivers.
Drivers and passengers who were rushing to Sunday church service became stranded and some were seen trying to make u-turns back to where they were coming from.
The Onitsha-Owerri Road, which connects vehicles coming to and fro the River Niger bridgehead is a link to other South-East and some South-South states, has been in a very bad shape at the Upper-Iweka and Obosi ends which causes gridlock and broken down of vehicles on regular basis.
When a team of the Federal Road Safety Corps, arrived at the scene at about 2pm to salvage the situation, they were overwhelmed by the stretch of the chaotic gridlock.
One of the FRSC men, who did not mention his name, while addressing the stranded motorists, some of whom had alighted from their vehicles, lamented the chaotic situation, saying that if the drivers had been a little patient, the situation wouldn’t have been as bad as it were.
He said, “We got a report on the situation of the road and we are here to control the traffic and ensure the obstruction caused by the broken down vehicles is not felt so much. Of course, it is expected that there would be traffic but if people had applied common sense, it wouldn’t have resulted in what it has become right now.
“We can only manage it to its barest minimum while we wait for the removal of these broken down vehicles. We can only urge the motoring public to take caution and obey directives.”
A visibly angry motorist, identified as Madam Ifijeh, blamed the state government for always refusing to carry out palliative works on the road.
Ifijeh described the excuse always given by the state government that the road belonged to the Federal Government and therefore it cannot fix it as “untenable” and “irresponsible”.
“Motorists go through hell on this road because of the dangers these bad portions have exposed us to. Tankers fall and other heavy duty vehicles fall down here regularly but the authorities have refused to do something about it,” she added.
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