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UGWU-ONYEAMA: ANOTHER BLOODY SCENE CAUSED BY ARMY CHECKPOINTS, BY DONS EZE
Once again, another bloody scene was witnessed on Tuesday, June 11, 2024, at the “notorious” Ugwu-Onyeama, a hilly stretch of road of about five kilometers from Enugu Metropolis, enroute the Ninth Mile Corner, along Enugu-Onitsha Expressway.
On that particular day, an articulated vehicle was said to have lost control while descending the hill, probably due to break failure, and in the process, rammed itself on long queue of vehicles at an army checkpoint.
Immediately, the entire place burst into flames, while most of the vehicles on the queue, and their passengers, got burnt.
Reports of casualities differed. While some reports said that 25 persons lost their lives as a result of the incident, the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), said they counted four dead persons.
Our concern, however, is not necessarily on the veracity of the figures reported in the present instance, but on the frequency of accidents at Ugwu-Onyeama. No week passes without such ugly reports emanating from the place. The road is becoming synonymous with Golgotha, a deadly scene.
At a stage, it was suggested that some “evil forces” were dwelling at the place, and that they were responsible for the frequent accidents on the road. This made some church people, and some “spiritually gifted” individuals to start going to the area to offer sacrifices at night. But this would not end the ugly spectacles.
For us, however, we believe that the frequent accidents at Ugwu-Onyeama are man-made. They are caused by human beings through their actions and inactions.
For several years, that particular stretch of road has been under construction, but still remains uncompleted. In consequence, it becomes an uphill task to try to navigate or to drive vehicles along the road, due to its very poor state. For many motorists therefore, it is simply a matter of survival of the fittest, where everybody will be struggling for where to put their tyres on the very rough edges of the road, and in the process, accidents occur.
Unfortunately, most of the articulated vehicles that navigate through Ugwu-Onyeama will not hold their brakes, and they will be running on top of their speed while descending the hill not minding the state of the road, which very often result to accidents.
When, however, relief seems to have come, when one side of the Expressway was virtually completed, instead of leaving the people to heave sigh of relief, the Nigerian Army and other security agencies, as well as the construction company building the road, carried heavy barricades to block it. This often has resulted to very long queues witnessed on both sides of the road, every moment of the day.
At present, there are three check points on each side of Ugwu-Onyeama – two on top of the hill, two at the middle, and two at the base – all being manned mostly by personnel of the Nigerian Army.
On each of these checkpoints, there will be long stretch of vehicles waiting to be passed, not minding the steepness of the hill. The resultant effect has been frequent accidents, when some vehicles descending the hill will ram on these long queues. And there will be loss of human lives, destruction of vehiles, and valuable properties.
One wonders what is so special about Ugwu-Onyeama that security agencies will mount three checkpoints on each side of the less than five kilometers of road, thereby create unnecessary traffic hold-ups, which frequently result to accidents.
Till date, we have not been told how many criminals that have been apprehended as a result of these check points.
While we have come to live with the reality of the garrisoning of the South East through several checkpoints mounted on our roads by various security agencies, we believe that this should be done with every reasonableness, taking into consideration the safety of the people. We do not think that mounting checkpoint at the steep of a hill is the best thing to do.
By the way, when will the construction of Ugwu-Onyeama road be completed, which has been going on since donkey years? If, and whenever that road is completed, they should not forget to put speed breaks, instead of checkpoints, which will help to curb recklessness of some drivers using the road.
