BY OKEY NDIRIBE, ABUJA

Residents of Nyanya and its environs were relieved last weekend as military men seemingly bowed to the public outcry against the traffic gridlock caused by the checkpoint they had set up after the bomb blast at a bus station in the area.

*Abuja commercial buses

Prior to the relaxation of the rigorous checks by soldiers,  residents  of the area who were just recovering from their recent trauma had gnashed their teeth in pain over the agonizing fall-out of the bomb blast.

Indeed, the increased security presence within the vicinity which ordinarily should have elicited plaudits had instead attracted lamentations as residents of the area, including those of Maraba, One Man Village, Ado, Masaka, Keffi, Karu, Jikwoyi, Kurudu and more got trapped in a traffic gridlock which sometimes stretched for over five kilometers and lasted for  up to 10 hours.

Narrating his experience to Vanguard Metro, VM, at Nyanya, Felix Paul, a commercial cab driver who plies the Nyanya-Kaduna-Kano route said he stopped working for four days while the traffic gridlock lasted. Said he: “As a result of the traffic jam, I didn’t work for four days. This is because, I don’t like hold ups. I just resumed work last Tuesday, but since then passengers have been scarce.”

However, he hailed the action of the soldiers. “The security checkpoint mounted by soldiers should be retained. If it had been in place, I don’t think that the terrorists would have succeeded with their bomb attack that fateful Monday,” he concluded.

This notwithstanding, his view was not very popular. Many residents felt the checkpoint should either be dismantled entirely as they described it as “medicine-after-death” or sufficiently relaxed to allow free flow of traffic.

Speaking to VM at Nyanya, a commercial bus driver who identified himself as  Job Philip residing at nearby Masaka, in Nassarawa State said: “I had to wake as early as 3 am so that I could beat the hold up. If I should wake up by 5 am,  I would join the traffic from One Man Village. How would I have coped  with that?”  According to him: “As far as I am concerned, the soldiers were deliberately punishing residents of this area without justification. Government should take the soldiers away from here and open the road.  The traffic jam inflicted pains on me. My legs are still aching till now.”

Another commercial bus driver who simply identified himself as Musa and lives at Keffi also in Nassarawa State, said: “My route is Nyanya- Deidei-Zuba-Suleja. While the traffic gridlock lasted, I used to wake up by 3 am to enable me beat the hold up and get to Nyanya on time. One day I woke up at 4.30 am and I ran into the traffic jam at Orange Market, Mararaba. As a result of that I had to do a u-turn and drive back home. I couldn’t go to work that day. The hold up lasted throughout  that day.”

Malachi, who described himself as a self-employed transporter, spoke in a similar vein, saying that he could only manage two trips instead of four on account of the traffic jam last week Wednesday.

For Timothy Oti, another commercial driver who relocated from crisis-prone Jos, capital of Plateau State not long ago, the experience was destabilising.

Speaking to VM, on the traffic jam arising from the road block mounted by soldiers, he said: “I don’t think this was the right approach to provide security, especially along a very busy road like Abuja-Nyanya road. Government can install bomb detectors and other security equipment which could identify any vehicle carrying explosives. This would enable the Police and other security agencies to isolate any vehicle  or vehicles that are being suspected of posing a security threat.”

However, public outcry over the situation prompted the Defence Headquarters, DHQ into into appealing for public understanding over the traffic on the Nyanya-Abuja highway, saying it was not meant to inconvenience road users.

The appeal was contained in a statement issued in Abuja by Maj.-Gen. Chris Olukolade, Director of Defence Information. He had explained that the traffic gridlock  was due to the ongoing checking of vehicles coming into the city centre from that route.