By Dada Ahmed in Lokoja.
As heavy rain sets in Lokoja, Kogi State capital on Friday, the people of Ganaja village have reiterated their clarion call on the Federal government to complete the rehabilitation of the 7-kilometre Ganaja road.
The Correspondent of The Reporters recalls that federal governnent started the rehabilitation of the road toward the end of 2021.
The aim,the online publication gathered is to make plying the easy and solve the perennial flood on the road which links Kogi State to the northern and eastern parts of Nigeria.
The online publication further reports that the work has been feasible between Baptist High School and Gadumo quarters while the remaining part of the road cries for completion.
Investigation by our correspondent revealed that the absence of road construction equipment from the road,in recent time, has hightened the anxiety in certain quarters, that perhaps, the project might not been completed on time.
When our Correspondent visited the Commissioners’ quarters, 500 housing units and up to Ganaja village round about on Thursday, it was an eye saw with motorists complaining bitterly about the deplorable portion of the axis of the road.
“With the rain sets in, we in Ganaja village are again warming to be cut off from the rest of the society as flood will soon take over our road and impede our movement due to the delay in finishing the job.
“I am passionately appealing to the federal government to, for God’s sake, complete this project as part of the dividends of democracy for the people of Ganaja village.
The Kogi State Governnent can also add its voice, as it did in recent past, to quicken the completion of the road and give us a new lease of life.
“Sometime, when I ply this road, especially with my car, I feel we in Ganaja village are not part of the state, given the agony we are passing through plying this road, Mal. Salman Mohammed said in an interview with The Reporters.
Commercial motorcyclists, popularly called Okada, and their counterparts, the Kekenapep operators also complained bitterly about the accelerated wearing and tearing their vehicles and machines suffered plying the road in various interviews they had with The Reporters.
“We, the Kekenapep riders are not making any reasonable profit plying this road as the greater part of our proceeds go for the repair of our keke, due to constant breakdown as a result of the bad nature of this road.
“This negative development made us to hike our fare, to be able repair keke and remain in the business,pending when the road will be in good shape,” he said.
The Reporters recalls that Ganaja village was one of the areas worse affected in 2012 flood that shook kogi state to its foundation with more than half of its 21 local government areas hit by flood.
For some days while the flood lasted, Ganaja village was almost cut off from the rest of Lokoja as flood took over the road and residents resorted to using cano to cross over to the township to continue their journey to other parts of the country.
