By Laleye Dipo
The Niger State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello, Tuesday directed the closure of all state roads to articulated vehicles.
Bello personally supervised the closure of one of the roads, the Minna-Bida road where he instructed government officials and security officials to give effect to the directive.
He said the decision to close the road to the category of vehicles “is to allow the construction company handling their rehabilitation to speed up the job”.
Some of the state roads affected by the governors order are Minna-Bida, Lapai-Paiko, Chanchaga Bridge-Maikunkele, Muye-Lapai and Zungeru-Wushishi.
The governor said the action was taken after series of meetings with the relevant stakeholders, following complaints by the construction company handling the rehabilitation work over the activities of the heavy trucks on the roads.
Bello appealed to owners of those category of vehicles and the public to cooperate with the government as the decision is not a deliberate action to inflict pains on the people but a step taken in the overall interest of the good of all and those affected.
The state government had awarded the contract for the construction of the Minna-Bida road to an indigenous construction company about seven months ago at N23.4 billion with a completion period of 18 months, while the road from Minna to Chanchaga bridge was awarded three months ago at over N2 billion.
However, because articulated vehicles continued to ply the roads, coupled with the heavy rains, not more than 5 per cent of the jobs have been done.
