The looming fuel crisis in the Northern part of the country has been averted as Gov. Sani Bello of Niger has directed the reopening of the Minna-Bida road to articulated vehicles.
Petroleum Tanker Drivers had earlier in the week suspended the lifting of the product to the zone due to the closure of the road.
They had lamented that the alternative route was nothing but a death trap, maintaining that they would not ply it.
Bello gave the directives to re-open the road on Friday at a news conference, after meeting with the Chief of Staff to the President, the Inspector-General of Police, Director-General of Department of State Service, the Group Managing Director of NNPC and the Minister of Works.
Bello explained that the meeting was to discuss issues arising from the closure of the Minna-Bida road and the state-owned roads.
At the news conference, Bello said he made a presentation on the deplorable state of the roads in the state, which was unanimously acknowledged to be due to articulated vehicles carrying excessive loads of liquid and dry cargoes.
He noted that such action had led to the destruction of the roads and caused hardship on other roads users.
As a way forward, the governor said the following agreements were reached:
“That no articulated vehicle carrying petroleum products of more than 45,000 litres or 35 tons of dry cargo will be allowed to ply the roads.
“That there was need for special intervention for remedial works to be executed on Federal roads to serve as alternative routes, for trucks to move their products.
“That the State Government would require support from the Federal Government to carry out remedial work on Farin-Doki-Minna-Bida road, for easy movement.
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“The Ministry of Works said there were ongoing road repairs by the Federal Government and reiterated its commitment to completing the project.”
The governor said that he had directed the relevant agencies to temporarily open the closed state roads to ease the hardship of motorists and other road users.
He appealed to the people of the state to be patient with the decision of reopening the roads, adding that the Federal Government’s intervention would be effected soon.
