Governor Abubakar Bello of Niger on Tuesday disclosed that his administration had spent close to N4 billion on maintenance of the Minna-Suleja road.
Bello disclosed this during the 57th (6th Quadrennial) National Delegates Conference of the Nigerian Union of Teachers in Minna.
He said that the contract for the dualisation of the Minna-Suleja road was awarded five years ago, adding that poor funding was responsible for slowing down the work.
He said: “When we came on board as a government in 2015, the first thing we did was to fix the road to make them motorable for our people and commuters.
“The major roads linking the southern and northern parts of the country later became bad and the bridges collapsed.
“All vehicular movements were diverted to Bida-Minna-Suleja road and this put pressure on the road. Over weight petroleum tankers had contributed in spoiling the road.
“You will see trucks and petroleum tankers carrying loads above the approved standard of between 30,000 metric tonnes and 45,000 metric tonnes
“Some carry up to 70,000 litres of petroleum products and yet no action has been taken against this indiscipline and lawless behavior.”
According to the governor, over 900 over weight trucks and petroleum tankers ply the road on daily basis and the maintenance is also carried out on the road on daily basis.
Bello, however, called for enforcement of maximum weight of trucks in the country as practised in the United States, Dubai and Saudi Arabia.
The governor noted that most of the collapsed bridges in the country were as a result of over weight of trucks plying the roads.
He also called on the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency address the security challenges on Brini-Gwari-Kaduna road which he said had contributed to the diversion of trucks to Minna.
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