Bad road denies vehicles access to community where people now convey their dead on motorcycles – Report

As one of the communities that make up Ishielu Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Nkalaha occupied the northern part of Ishielu Local Government Area.

It shares boundaries with neighbouring communities – Obeagu, Amazu, Umuahia, Ngbo, Effium, and Eha-Amufu in Enugu State, and other communities in Benue State.

Nkalaha community, a boundary community like Obeagu community has no access roads.

In short, the community can only be accessed by motorcycle or trekking.

Residents of the community have also engaged in self-help but their efforts have defiled solution as they funds to tackle the challenges of the road.

As one of the host communities of NIGERCEM, the moribund premier cement industry that was at the centre of economic development in Eastern Nigeria, with a population of about 10,000 people, who are predominantly farmers, Nkalaha people are going through untold hardship due to deplorable condition of their road.

To visit Nkalaha, one will have to go through Egedegede Junction on Nkalagu- Eha-Amufu road where the person will pack his vehicle and enter a commercial motorcycle popularly known as Okada, which is the only means of transportation to the area.

Due to the poor nature of the road, okada operators collect between N4000 from Nkalagu junction or N1500 to N2000 to convey a passenger on the mucky road that is about five kilometres with the passenger sometimes asked to walk some distance to save the motorcycle from being stuck in the mud.

The people appealed for urgent government attention to the road to enable them to harness agricultural potential of the area and ease their movement.

“This road is too bad so we need a help from the government, people are suffering from the road too much, we need help,’’ one of the road users who gave her name as Chikodi Odo lamented. “Recently only tractor that convey agricultural products from Egedegede junction to Nkalaha and from Nkalaha to Egedegede junction.”

James Eze and Mrs. Precious Edeh, both farmers, told SaharaReporters during a visit to the community on Saturday, that the nature of the road had discouraged dealers in farm produce from visiting their local Orie Market for business, especially during rainy season.

‘’We suffer it so much to the extent that we cannot transfer our goods outside. Look at the machine everywhere is suffering. There is no movement at all,’’ the farmers lamented.

Investigations reveal that as a result of the situation, some corpses of loved ones, whose deaths occurred outside the community, have been lying in the mortuary for months as there is no road for ambulances to bring them back home.

And those who died in the community whose relations are living outside are conveyed to mortuary through motorcycles.

Such corpses are kept till dry season for burial because of lack of access road.

Samuel Odo shared his experience of bringing back corpse of his father for burial two months ago.

‘’If you try make a mistake of bringing any corpse here, it means from Egedegede you must bring the corpse here on head or Okada. This is because of the terrain of our road we cannot bring corpse.

“During the burial of my father, the vehicle was stuck in the mud for hours we could not bring the vehicle out. What saved us that day was a tractor working in a farm that came to our rescue and conveyed the corpse to our community and pulled the ambulance out. All the people that attended the burial from outside trekked for 4 km. It was as terrible and horrifying as that.

“We took that bitter experience because we have calculated the worsening economic situation in the country with increasing taxes on keeping corpses in the morgue,” he narrated.

In 2020, the Ebonyi State Government reportedly released N10 million naira to the people through Ebonyi Community and Social Development Agency while the Federal Government through the River Basin Authority awarded a contract to construct a bridge at Ora River that could also connect the area with the rest of the state.

Like in Obeagu, neighbouring community the bridge construction was abandoned despite the project had been fully paid to contractor by the government.

A trader, said “this road has been like that since I was born and our people have been calling on government to help them but to no avail. You can witness it for yourself, is a first hand. If the government want to help us let them quickly and rescue us.

“The only means to convey goods to our community is through wheelbarrow or carrying it on the head. That also makes it costlier. Our people pay thrice of the price of any goods because of cost of transportation. This is as a result of lack of access road.”

[SaharaReporters except headline]