Human Rights Liberty Access and Peace Defenders’ Foundation (HURIDE) has disclosed that bad roads in Anambra State have claimed at least nine lives in Onitsha and its environs.
It stated that among the victims were a pregnant woman, a 70-year-old man whose tricycle was submerged in a pool of flood water at Haruna Street.
Other victims, it added, were five Keke operators and their passengers, who a trailer fell on at Obodo-Ukwu road, Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State.
The group disclosed this when the members performed a mock commissioning of Obodo-Ukwu and Ede Road in Ogbaru Local Government Area of Anambra State at the weekend.
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Leading members of HURIDE during the exercise, the chairman, Dede Uzor A Uzor, said they decided to commission the road, which had been cut into two since Governor Willie Obiano had forgotten it, or had been too busy to remember the rehabilitation of the road and others in the state.
He said Obodo-Ukwu road was strategic to the economic prosperity of the state as it linked Owerri Road with the Ogbaru Local Government Area, including Harbour Industrial Estate.
The group threatened that after 14 days and there was no action by the governor, they would mobilise the human rights community and other progressive minded people to occupy the roads until something was done.
Ekene Nnadi, chairman, Campaign for Democracy (CD) in the state, called on the state House of Assembly to initiate ways to dialogue with Obiano to perform his constitutional duties.
