Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory is now a huge joke of nature that heavy traffic build up predominates where there are so many good roads. From any of the entry points to Abuja, Nyanya, Kubwa and Airport Road in the morning, it is a nightmare to motorists. In the afternoon and evening, peculiar Lagos features of traffic build ups and confusion leaves a first time caller to the city bewildered. You would be wrong to think that the city centre is a haven for vehicle racers.

Abuja, a sprawling patch of savannah with rolling hills and tortuous valleys, of Gbagi huts, granaries and once empty roads is gradually receding to a city of horror to motorists. The hallmarks of civilization which normally form the hooves of modern vehicular traffic have come to trample on Abuja’s smooth roads.

In this city, psychological trauma, stress, anger of various degree, anxiety and frustration often trail the daily experiences and reactions of commuters from the suburbs to the city centre. It has become a daily occurrence. Failed appointments and sufferings are often the direct consequences of this build up in traffic.
Sequel to this heavy traffic situations, residents believe that the traffic hold-up in the city, which has become a serious menace would in a no distant time make the cherished Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to replicate the traffic experiences in Lagos, if nothing is done very urgently to stem the tide.

For instance, commuters along the Keffi-Abuja road which is the only road leading to the city centre from Nyanya, Karu, Jikwoyi, Karshi, Orozo, Kurudu, Gbegi, Gbagalape and other towns like Mararaba and its environs in Nasarawa state, set out to their work places as early as 4.30 am in order to beat the hold up. The hold- up starts to build up as early as about 5.30 am from Mararaba through Nyanya and stretches up to Aso Rock Villa junction in Asokoro, a distance of about 10 kilometres.
Some commuters who spoke with Daily Sun said they spend hours on the road that, ordinarily, should have been less than 30 minutes drive. The case is not different with those going to work in the city from as far as Suleija in Niger state through Kubwa, a satellite town in Abuja. This is the access road that commuters from Kaduna, Niger states and Zuba, Madala, Deidei, Kubwa, Bwari, Dutse and other satellite towns must pass through to get to their work places in the city centre.

For this axis of the territory, Daily Sun discovered that the hold up starts as early as 6. 00 am and stretches till about 11.00 am from Kubwa up to Gwarimpa on daily basis. Some of the residents disclosed that people get stock in the hold up sometimes for several hours before proceeding to their various destinations in the city. The story, Daily Sun’s findings show is also the same with people coming from Lugbe and other suburbs along the Lokoja-Abuja road through Lugbe, and Karmo, another satellite town from the Jabi axis of the city.

Daily Sun also discovered that people in the different axis suffer more in the evenings while returning to their houses after work hours. It was discovered that from about 5. 00pm, traffic on all these roads become very heavy so much so that it causes the commuters to turn off their vehicle engines for a very long time in other to avoid overheating. It was also gathered that the situation usually becomes very chaotic during the rainy season when motorists approach the junctions. Confusion usually set in following the absence of Police, traffic wardens or Road Safety officials.

Most commuters attributed the menace to lack of alternative routes to the city from these towns resulting from what they described as the fault of those who planned the roads leading into the city. Commuters with expert views on the road situation blamed the government, which they said did not take into consideration this menace while planning the FCT. It was also learnt that few years ago, about the late 1990s, even though the road network was not as good as it is, presently, the traffic situation was non existent on those roads.

The demolition exercise in the city and the suburbs by the erstwhile Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Nasir Ahmed el-Rufai and the sales of government houses in the city by his boss and former President, Olusegun Obasanjo, combined to chase so many people out of the city to those satellite towns and environs, the consequence of which is the present congestions on those roads. By the activities of that administration, many people who could not afford to buy the houses they lived in the city, or who were not even given the opportunities to benefit from the policy had no alternatives than to relocate out of the city. There was also movement of those whose houses were demolished to the suburbs of the city. Daily Sun learnt that this was the beginning of the menace of hold-up in Abuja.

The traffic situations are not without their own problems. For instance, a resident in one of the satellite towns and a Civil servant, Mrs Mercy Eze, told Daily sun her experience as a pregnant woman in the hold-up. She narrated how she boarded a bus going to the city from Mararaba and was stocked for over an hour on the road. According to her, “I became very uncomfortable, sweated profusely in the bus that was choked up with people and with the petrol and clutch odour, I felt like vomiting. I hadn’t gone even half way into my journey before I told the driver to drop me because I could no longer bear these inconveniences.

“Shortly after Nyanya, at Kugbo, I was forced to tell the driver to drop me. When I got down, I had to look for a place to sit down, bought coke with biscuits from the hawkers on the hold-up to resuscitate myself. Afterward, since the hold-up was still very heavy I began to trek slowly not minding my condition until I got to A.Y.A

(Asokoro), before I was able to proceed to my office.”
Apart from pregnant women suffering these inconveniences which sometimes she said was capable of causing abortion, she said it has created problems to some marriages arising from suspicions between couples as some of them who suspect infidelities on the part of their partners claim that they are using the hold up as a cover-up. Equally, she pointed out that it has affected the night fellowship among family members as most of the times they return late while others may have gone to bed, preventing them from having dinner together.

Motorists who spoke with Daily Sun observed that the situation is not often very healthy for vehicles as some of them suffer from overheating, breakdown, dents by reckless drivers, and even serious accidents resulting from break failures and loss of control by the driver leading to multiple crashes of vehicles and eventual killings of some commuters.
However, as a result of government’s responsiveness, Daily Sun learnt that construction works had been carried out on most of the roads while expansions are ongoing on others to ease the pains. Presently, all of the highways are being dualized and well built for the convenience of motorists. The Abuja-Keffi road that used to be a single lane as at late 1990s had since been dualized. The road leading into the city from Gwagwalada through Lugbe, is also undergoing serious expansion. These not withstanding, people are worried that the end to the traffic build up would be an illusion until government create alternative roads that would lead into the city from all these satellite towns.


By: UBONG UKPONG (The Sun Newspaper) Abuja

It is imperative that alternative form of transportion is developed in the capital city, especially rail travel. It is fast, safe and energy efficient.