NO fewer than eight pregnant women, who were rushing to keep their
appointments at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital and the General
Hospital, Calabar, Cross River State, were trapped on the Calabar-Itu highway
as a result of the failed road which had been impassable for five days.
Besides,
ambulances carrying five corpses to various destinations for burial could not
pass through the failed road. Relatives of the deceased persons had to resort
to carrying the corpses on their shoulders and trekking close to three
kilometres
to transfer them to other vehicles after spending about two days on
the road.
The
Calabar/Itu/Ikot Ekpene and Calabar/Ogoja roads had become death traps for some
time now as the roads which were constructed over 40 years ago had failed and
is now a nightmare to motorists, while the economy of the state had suffered as
a result of the deplorable state of the roads.
Speaking
after inspecting the collapsed roads, state Commissioner for Works, Mr.
Legor Idagbo, said the state government had been calling on the Federal
Government over the deplorable state of Calabar/Itu/Aba road and Calabar/Ogoja
road since last year with no response.
He
said: “Cross River State Government has spent close to N13 billion on federal
roads in the state and as I speak, no kobo has been given back to us. Recently,
the Federal Government sent a team and they came up with a figure of N3 billion
as due us, that figure was inadequate but we said give us the money, but
up till date, no kobo had been given to us.”