On September 25, 2012, the Federal Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolemenen, following an onsite assessment of the flooding that divided vehicular movement from the Northern part of the country to south, instructed that an alternate route be sought – and constructed quickly as an emergency route to ease the flow of traffic. In particular, he charged three construction companies with the task; Julius Berger, RCC and Dantata and Sawoe.
In his words on September 25, “what we’ve been doing since yesterday is to identify a by-pass which we have created. As at this morning, we have attained about 60 percent completion. From the way we are going, by tomorrow the road should be opened to motorists. We have done a diversion at those drainage and vehicles will be able to drive normally through this by-pass without having recourse to canoes on our roads as a result of the flooding that happened”.
But the bypass held for five [5] days and failed – owing to a recent rainfall in the area.
According to eyewitness reports, the bypass which was quickly paved around the flood can no longer serve as a bypass – as the recent rainfall has rendered the road impassable and risky. “Only one partial lane is functional” and all the vehicles including trailers and tankers – going both directions are to use the single lane. As a result, the area has turned into a trailer park – stretching for miles from Lokoja towards Okene direction and miles towards the opposite direction.
“Okada ride across the flooding on the bypass cost N700”, noted our source who was also a passenger in one of the many stranded transport buses – today [October 3, 2012]. He observed that the disaster area has caused a makeshift economy to spring up near the failed bypass. Near the bypass is a new market consisting of merchants hawking emergency food and sanitary items, including cooked food. Also, transporters have devised a new means to earn benefit of out the disaster. They have shortened and/or divided their trips into two sections – a trip from Abuja to Asaba, Delta State will require a passenger to take one trip to the flooded area – and then board an Okada across the flooded area – and then board another vehicle to Asaba.
