Niger State Government to Close Down Paiko-Lapai Road from Wednesday

Niger State Government has declared that it would close down the Paiko-Lapai road in Niger State to articulated vehicles on Wednesday.

This, according to the government is to enable the contracts working on the road to continue the repair works.

It would be recalled that the Niger State Government had opened up the Paiko-Lapai road two weeks ago at the insistence of the federal government after drivers of articulated vehicles blocked all major entrances into the state to protest the closure by the state government.

The information for the road closure was stated in a statement signed by the Niger State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mohammed Sani Idris on Monday.

Sani stated that the presence of articulated vehicles on the roads have stalled the progress of work being carried out by the contractors.

According to him, “seeing as these articulated vehicles in their thousands are constantly plying the road, the State Government cannot be unmindful of the accompanying result of this situation. The road in the last two weeks has now gone from bad to worse while the contractor cannot work optimally.” he said.

Idris stated that the closure of the road to articulated vehicles was necessary because the federal government had failed to live up to its pledge to carry out reconstruction of some critical areas on the Lambata-Bida Road.

“After tanker drivers blocked the Lambata axis of the Minna-Suleja road and Bida axis of Bida-Lambata road in protest of bad roads, again the State Government was invited by the Federal Ministry of Works, this time assuring the Niger State Government that remedial measures would be carried out on the critical sections of the Lambata-Bida road.”

The government expressed disappointment that the federal government has not commenced any work on the road.