By ABDULLAHI RABIU, Kano
MINISTER of Works and Housing Mr. Babatunde Fashiola has called on Nigerian Commuters to drive within the Stipulated 100km Per hour speed limit being the official Speed agreed by the law In order to arrive their destinations safely as they ply the newly constructed High Ways across the Country.
Fashiola made the call while inspecting the Kano -Abuja road projects yesterday during an official on the Spot Visit to Kano state to asses performances of works going on at Kano –Katsina and Kano – Zaria – Abuja High ways.
The Works Minister said he had to ordered for the evacuation of a truck that fell down as result of over Speeding on 342km .
He said “the truck fell, maybe it was over-speeding because of the road. I had to call the corps Marshal of the Road Safety as we were coming to send a removal truck to come and pick that truck at KM 342 this Morning.”
According to him “this is the reality of delivering infrastructure in a build up area. If you observe, you will notice that we have to relocate electricity poles, trucks parked by roadsides discharging Cargoes, you will see farmers spreading their produce by the Highway.”
These are the real life challenges that we face. But we are managing them. You can see some sections completed that side and some sections completed this Carriage of the road.
Asphalt is been laid here and you can see the workers as well. So, this again is how infrastructure provides employment. There are 1,600 persons working here from 14 different parts of the World
most of them Nigerians and some of them providing other expatriates. You can see behind me the bitumen plant providing bitumen. “
Be said “These are supplies that the contractor does not make, so another supplier benefiting from that aspect. All the trucks ferrying laterite shows the ecosystem around infrastructure, about 643 equipment deployed. And these equipment do not work on their own, you need people to operate them -that’s employment.
So, work is in progress and let me appeal to our people to vacate the right of way so that the Contractor can work more efficiently. There are safety issues about deployment of equipment, I don’t want anybody to loose his life during the construction.”
The Minister stated further to that for those using the road while it is being reconstructed, I will use this opportunity to appeal to them that the absolute maximum speed on the federal highway is 100km/hr. Try and stay within that speed limit so you can arrive at your destination safely.
You have also seen overloaded trucks, we are planning to start rolling out wheel bridges but enforcement is not the solution, but voluntary compliance with maximum width level is what helps us in preserving the asphalt life values of roads.”
He said we are reconstructing the road. What this really means is that ideally the entire road should be excavated. And then we have to start milling and mining construction materials. That also is not particularly environmentally healthy, in terms of the current global awareness about conservation. So, what they are doing is that they are reusing, through a special method, some of the materials on the old road. But they need s
Special Machines to Mill them, reprocess them and add certain other components to them. And those who are in the engineering business will tell you that reused materials would have gained some strengths overtime and most likely to give even much stronger and reliable pavement when they finished.”
He did “Our target is to ensure the main carriage way is ready before May 29, 2023. But within this target, you can see some of the challenges we are faced and dealing with and it is important for people to understand that if you want to build a road, certain things have to be done properly.
So, the pavement must be compacted and allowed to be ready for the next step and the asphalt to be laid must be laid at a specific temperature. That is why when they are laying asphalt they insert thermometers to ensure thst the temperature is right.
So, we are not going to compromise all of that quality, otherwise the road will fail. And we have only 24hours in one day to work and we also want to avoid accidents. These are our targets to finish the main carriage way before May 29, 2023 and we are doing our very best to achieve this.
And the President is also involved in this, because we meet with his Chief of Staff every .Month to appraise him of challenges. We have right of way issues and the states are the ones who control land, they are the best suited to help relocate their residents from our rights of way.
In some places, people have built on our right of way so the compensation issues have to be taken care of. I was with the governor of Kano (Abdullahi Umar Ganduje) and one of the issues he addressed was that he was already on top of his own section and that very soon they will resolve their compensation issue.
We are in talks and collaboration with the governor of Kaduna (El-Rufai) as well as the governor of Niger and the minister of the FCT, through whose territories these roads passed, so the earlier we overcome all of these challenges, the easier it is our work. The President is providing all of the funding support and it is now a matter of man hours and work hours really and truly and we are prepared for the worst and we hope for the best.
He said the Controller in charge of Kaduna-Zaria: The problems we are facing:
‘”Kaduna-Zaria has the most vehicles -about 24,000 vehicles at once from Kano, Maiduguri, Kebbi and Jos towards the area. Everyday we witnessed accidents, even yesterday, this Morning and now. The driver to the Police Convoy has just broken his leg. A Vehicle came and knocked him. We have taken him to the Hospital.
Finaly, we are interfacing with the state government and the Federal Road Safety
But all the obstructions on the Carriage way have been cleared and you can see the work going on.”
