The city of Umuahia, Abia State capital was temporarily held hostage on Monday when a large crowd of students from Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, (MOUAU), near Umuahia, staged a peaceful protest against the bad state of the Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot Ekpene highway as a result of which one of their students was crushed by a truck on Sunday evening.

The school is located at the Umudike axis of the Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot Ekpene highway. It was gathered that deceased student, Miss Chidinma Ogbonna, a final year student of the Department of Fishery was trying to cross the road when the truck whose driver allegedly crushed her. The driver was said to be driving on top speed at the time of the incident.

The unidentified truck driver was said to have sped off on the discovery that his victim had no chance of surviving the accident.

The students, carrying various inscriptions like “Enough Is Enough, Federal Government Save Our Souls, Repair Your Roads” etc, marched to the Government House, Umuahia where the Secretary to the Government of Abia State (SSG), Barr Chris Ezem, commended them for the peaceful nature of the protest and pleaded with the federal government to urgently rehabilitate the road to wastage of human lives on the road through accidents.

The president of the Students’ Union Government (SUG), Comrade Chukwuma Ogochukwu decried the deplorable state of the road and disclosed that the Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot Ekpene has become a death trap, not only to students, lecturers and staff of Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, but to the entire people of the areas the road passes through.

He insisted that the students were determined to stay on the streets until the road is fixed. However, the Abia State government has pledged to perform some palliative measures on the road from Wednesday this week.

The State Commissioner for Information, Chief John Okiyi Kalu said in Umuahia that Governor Okezie Ikpeazu has ordered for the partial rehabilitation of the road for easy passage pending when the federal government will do a total reconstruction of the dilapidated road. The measure, he added, is to ease the sufferings motorists and people plying the road encounter on daily basis.

It will be recalled that the Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot Ekpene road has been in a deplorable state disrepair since the past six years even as the government awarded N13billion for its rehabilitation since 2019.

(Daily Independent)

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