Some students of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU) in Abia on Monday embarked on a protest over the bad state of Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road in the state.
The demonstration comes a few hours after a truck reportedly killed a final-year student of the institution on the road on Sunday night.
According to NAN, the students carried placards with the inscriptions like “Fix Umuahia-Ikot-Ekpene road”, “Enough is Enough” as well as “I want to graduate and be a corper not a corpse”.
The students marched through major streets of Umuahia to register their displeasure over the inability of the federal government to fix the road.
They also blamed the state of the road for the road accidents that had claimed the lives of road users especially students of the school.
Chukwuma Ugochukwu, the varsity’s students’ union government president (SUG), said the state of the road had plunged road users into untold hardship.
“Yesterday, a student of MOUAU was killed in an autocrash that involved an SUV and a Truck which occurred on the Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road,” he said.
“We are no longer comfortable with that road. We are asking that this road should be looked into with immediate effect.
“This road has caused the school so much loss and we seek immediate government attention on the road.
“We are giving four days ultimatum to the state government to commence the palliative works on the Umuahia-Ikot Ekpene road”.
Also speaking, James Daniel, another student of the institution, said since the project was awarded in 2019, nothing concrete has been done.
“In 2019, we were told that the road has been awarded, but the only work that we have seen is the construction of drainages leaving the road undone,” he said.
But reacting, Chris Ezem, secretary to the state government, denied claims that the government was playing politics with the road.
“We are not playing politics with the road and cannot afford to lose any more lives on the road and our sympathy goes to the family of the deceased,” Ezem said.
He described the road as a significant factor in the achievement of socioeconomic development in Abia and added that the commissioner for works would commence inspection of the road.
Ezem said that the road in question was a federal road, adding that the state government would commence palliative works on the road to make it passable.
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