By Samuel Oyadongha
Yenagoa— Commuters on the ailing East-West road were yesterday stranded for several hours, as Opokuma axis of the road was completely cut off .

The incident caused road users untold hardship due to the gridlock which spanned several kilometres on the road.

Some passengers on the route had to abandon the vehicles in which they were travelling and boarded motorcycles to get through the bad spot to continue with their journey.

A combined team of the Police and the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, was seen yesterday, battling to arrest the chaotic situation as every driver battled to get through.

A commuter, Benson Alaowei, who spoke to Vanguard on the road, lamented the sorry state of the road, which he blamed on the insensitivity of the Federal Government.

According to him, a responsive government would have tackled the ailing road long before now instead of watching it become a death trap.

“This is what we have been passing through in the last five years. Who would have believed this is an oil and gas rich region, which has been sustaining the growth and development of this nation?

This is the only road that links the East with the West and here we are. I have been on one spot for the past five hours, we are neither moving forward nor going backward. With this situation, many people who are on business assignment have lost several millions of naira.”

He decried the slow space of work by the construction company handling the dualisation project, Setraco and called on the Federal Government to prevail on the company to expedite action on the project.

Julius Berger it will be recalled was initially awarded the dualisation job but pulled out at the height youth militancy following the killing of one of its staff and abduction of others in 2008.