Motorists are compelled to spend productive hours on a few minutes drive route due to needless traffic jams occasioned by bad spots and disrepair of the city roads.
Worse still, the damaged roads apparently left unattended across the eight metropolitan council areas, are flooded by frequent downpours; thereby impeding vehicular movement and inflicting pain on road users.
Some of the damaged roads include the state road by Tarauni; Audu Bako Road near 9mobile and roundabout near AA Rano; Lagos Road, by Civic centre and Bank Road.
Others are Club Road by Airport Road; France Road, Court Road by Zoo Road, and Karkasara by AKTH among others.
Investigation indicated that almost 80 per cent of roads in Sabon Gari in Fagge council are not motorable.
While some residents resorted to self-help fixing the damaged roads to reduce the pains and economic loss, users had no choice in some areas, but to continue to risk the damage to their vehicles.
On some occasions, most of the dilapidated roads are left with unsolicited labourers who source for stones to fill the bad spots while using the opportunity to beg motorists for money.
Some of the residents who spoke with The Guardian yesterday on the condition of the roads appealed to the state government to rescue them by repairing the roads.
With many urging the government to channel the internally generated revenue to repair the roads, a large percentage of people expressed disappointment that the concerned authority has continued to show lackadaisical attitude towards road rehabilitation in the city.
One of the residents, who identified himself as Mohammad Mahmoud, urged the government to intervene in road rehabilitation.
He said business and commercial activities along the affected areas are paralyzed because of the inaccessible roads.
A motorist, Mukaila Rasheed, who also spoke with The Guardian, said he frequently visits mechanics to fix his vehicle damaged by the bad condition of the road network. He wanted the concerned authority to urgently come to their rescue.
Besides Rasheed, another concerned resident, Aminu Abubakar, said the damaged roads around the city could dim the good image and effort of the government in so many sectors of the economy.
Aminu regretted that the wet weather has further exposed the underside of the badly constructed road network in the city, calling on agencies concerned to fix the potholes.
Works and infrastructure took parts of the lion’s shares with the allocation of N39.9bn earmarked for the sector in the 2022 budget. Out of this large portion, the Ministry of Works and Infrastructure is allocated N34bn while the Kano State Road Maintenance Agency got N847m.
These funds are specifically dedicated to the construction of underpasses, flyovers, and bridges and to constructing and rehabilitating various city roads.
Efforts to ascertain the state of the roads and get responses to public complaints and outcry were not successful.
The Kano State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Alh. Idris Wada, declined to respond to several calls and text messages put across to his official telephone line.
