By Favour Goodness
A socio-cultural/political civil society organisation, Cultural Credibility Development Initiative (CCDI), has cried out over the large number of checkpoints mounted on roads leading to, and in the South-East, lamenting that they are suffocating the region.
It made the lamentation in a letter signed by its President, Chief Goddy Uwazurike, and Secretary, Pastor Steve Nwabuko, addressed to Chief of Defence Staff, General Leo Irabor, and Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba.
CCDI noted that people spend long hours on South-East roads, much more than in other areas in the country due to traffic gridlock caused by the roadblocks.
The letter dated 16th December, 2021, reads in part: “We are writing to bring to your attention, the suffocation caused by the humongous number of checkpoints in Igbo land.
“For the avoidance of doubt, a traveller from Lagos to Igbo land sees checkpoints every one kilometre up to Benin City. The traveller from Abuja sees checkpoints every two kilometres until he reaches Delta North fringes. The two sets of travellers are then subjected to the horror of a checkpoint every half a kilometre.
“The distance between checkpoints is reduced to 200 metres once a traveller crosses the Niger Bridge. This Niger Bridge obstruction with checkpoints causes five kilometre backlog of cars in a traffic snarl.
“We are presenting the actual situation of things in Igbo land. Today, it takes about five hours to travel from Lagos to the outskirts of Asaba, Delta State. But it takes about six hours to travel the distance from the outskirts of Asaba to the Niger Bridge. The suffering is unbearable.”
CCDI urged security agencies to reduce the number of checkpoints by 75 percent to ease difficulties faced by road users on daily basis.
