Gwagwa, Karmo, Jiwa residents call for repairs of bad roads

Residents of Gwagwa, Karmo and Jiwa communities in the Federal Capital Territory have called for government attention to the state of bad road in their areas.

Some of the residents who spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) during a community development survey on Sunday said the state of roads affect their social and economic activities.

Okechukwe Onuche, a shop owner in Gwagwa, said other challenges of businesses include poor power supply, high transport fare and low customer patronage.

“I have been here for the past 15 years and the road keeps deteriorating. For the past seven years now the road has been very dilapidated and the people around here are suffering.

“This is the road that leads to the market that the whole community around this environment is using and it leads people coming from Zuba axis to town.

“The road got so bad that people are no longer taking this direction but prefer to take the Kubwa expressway which is a very long distance to the city centre.

“For us that are living around this area, we have our business here, the people that use to come from far distance to buy goods from us no longer come.

“The trucks that we use to bring our goods have stopped coming because of the bad roads. To be honest with you the road has denied us a lot of things”.

Another resident, Eze Praise, told NAN that the road has not been rehabilitated since her relocation to Gwagwa eight years ago.

“I have been in Gwagwa for eight years now, this road has been like this before I even came, and this road is affecting us because a lot of accidents happen here daily.

“We are begging the government to come and repair this road for us
because they have repaired the other road but this road is the most important one because it is along the market place,” he said.

The Emir of Jiwa, Alhaji Idris Musa, said the issue of road and other social amenities in the community have been in the front burner of successive administrations.

He, however, said that infrastructural development in any given community is achieved through the public-private partnership in order to allow scare funds reach other critical sectors.

Musa said that the emirate would continue to engage with the government to ensure that development continue to reach the residents.