…As Motorists Plead For Evacuation Of De-Silted Wastes At Casloba Street, Umuagu In State Capital
BY BENSON OKOBI-ALLANAH
AS you drive round under the expansive Koka Flyover Bridge that spread across a portion of the ever-busy Asaba-Benin Expressway in the sprawling capital city of Asaba, Ijora-7up Fly-over under bridge readily comes to your mind’s eyes as a result of similar features shared by both fly-overs. For those conversant with the Lagos environments, they know what I am trying to say.
Though I am yet to confirm if Ijora is still in its ugly old state because it is up to four years I last visited there, the present state of Koka Fly-over captures the sordid state of the city that plays hosts to 7Up Bottling Company Plc, the Ijora Power Sub-station and The New Nigerian Newspaper Lagos office.
At the time Koka Fly-over was commissioned, its beauty and the esthetics it added to that part of Asaba city wasastonishing and alluring even to the extent that some residents of the capital city began taking pleasure trips in their cars and leisure walk to the place both in the day and in the night, and mostly in the night as its sparking attraction made it more of a willing place to visit at that time of the day. Its highly electrified environments, was simply bonanza.
Koka that was notorious for its everyday day hold-up, that people used to refer toas a ghetto, advanced slump, never sleeping area and all other derisive names like they refer to Cable Point, another area in Asaba, soon after the bridge was commissioned on completion during Governor Okowa administration, became a Mecca of sort for many residents and non-residents because of its allure.
Prior to its commissioning, Koka junction, like I earlier pointed out, was notorious for its ever un-disappearing gridlock, being busy all through the day and night as one of the major embarkation/ disembarkation points in the city at any time of the day for potential travellers in and around Asaba. Its gridlocks come mostly during morning and afternoon time down to early hours of the night, passing the baton to Onitsha on its eastern flank for continuation of the hold-up. Many people here at Koka, even till now, hardly sleep as a result of the commercialactivities and other businesses that take place there both in the day time and at night while the constant gridlock has considerably reduced.
It was the constant gridlock that takes place daily on this portion of the expressway that the immediate past Governor, Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa deemed it fit to have traffic in the area decongested by constructing a fly-over to create other exit routes for the large volume of vehicles that pass through the city, coming in, or leaving the state capital.
With the construction of the fly-over, many residents of Asaba and its environs were quick to run into conclusion that the presence of hoodlums Koka area used to witness, and the various degrees of crime recorded there will start taking the backward slide, start nose-diving. And all that knew about it were enthusiastic! But that never be as it continues, this time around, on a higher scale as unprecedented number of street beggars, vagabonds, the homeless, the strays, scumsand the jobless, have made the under bridge of Koka Fly over their home, with very few others carrying out genuine businesses there. In fact, it has come to the point that these hoodlums now lay claims to be being in charge of some parts of the under bridge they struggled for, and partitioned some few months the fly-over was commissioned for use of the public.
The beauty that accompanied the commissioning of the fly-over, the esthetics it added to that area of the city of Asaba, as we drop this piece, is no more. The preservation, conservation and sustainability of its beauty has been lost to hoodlums there all of whom appear,as it seems now, to be unapproachable and un-reproachable by Ministry of Environment, Asaba Capital Territory Development Agency, Ministry of Urban Renewal, Waste Management Board and other concerned bodies. Taskforce members and security agencies will raid Koka junction to drive them away, and in the next few hours, they reassemble again.
Members of the public are of the view that those meant to tackle this problem that seems to be hydra-h-eaded in nature atKoka junction should be handled seriously.
He called on all major stake-holders to brace up to the challenge by looking for a more permanent way of moving these hoodlums, beggars and other miscreants out from there, and clearing the stinking waste materials which odour assail through people’s nostrils at the Koka Fly over under bridge as they pass by.
Meanwhile, concerned residents have called on the officials of Asaba Capital Territory, Ministry of Environment and Waste Management Board to clear up de-silted waste materials that have started growing weeds on the road, and taken over reasonable portion of the roads as they now cause obstruction for both motorists and other road users.
Concerned residents of Casloba Street, the street opposite Studio 24, and before the Umuagwu Health Center, and others living in some parts of Umuagu community in Asaba, are disturbed that months after these waste materials were removed from the gutters and deposited on the roads by some heartless and non-challant residents, they have not been evacuated.
