Date: 2021-12-07

Members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers, as well as those of the Road Transport Employee Association of Nigeria on Monday in Ilorin, Kwara State, protested against the neglect of the Moro-Bailey bridge in the Moro Local Government Area of the state.

The bridge, a colonial construction, has served the people of the state for several decades and connects Kwara with Igbeti in Oyo State, but now in the verge of collapse.

Although the construction of a new bridge to replace the colonial structure was awarded in 2017 by the Federal Government, the project has yet be to completed.

Motorists, transporters and pedestrians, majority of whom are farmers, on Monday lamented the negative impact of the neglect of the Federal Government bridge on their businesses.

The Kwara RTEAN chairman, Alhaji Olayinka Onikijipa, called the attention of the federal Ministry of Works and Housing, led by Minister Babatunde Fashola, to the suffering of the people of Kwara over the failure to complete the new bridge.

He said, "The construction work has been abandoned since 2018. This has imposed a lot of hardship on the people, especially transport workers and farmers who are in the majority here.

"The colonial structure has almost collapsed, causing unimaginable hardship to all us."

Onikijipa appealed to Fashola to direct the contractor to go back to site without any further delay.

On his part, the state chairman of the NURTW, Alhaji Abdulrazaq Ariwo-Ola, said the unions had been involved in palliatives measure to make the bridge passable.

"Many lives have been lost because of the poor and worrying condition of the bridge which has now turned to a death trap," he added.