Bulmun Sunday Dakwal Heavy rains in Jos, Plateau state capital, are a nightmare for residents of Katon Gyese, a Tudun Wada community. The sole link to the city is an ageing, poorly constructed bridge that becomes impassable when the river overflows, trapping people on both sides.
While crossing the bridge usually takes seconds, during downpours, the wait for the floodwaters to subside can stretch for hours, testing the patience of even the most stoic commuters.
“One evening, I left work as the rain intensified,” said one resident, who asked not to be named. “We expected a delay, but it turned into a three-hour ordeal.”
According to Sekyen Phillip, a community entrepreneur, the wait “makes it very difficult when you have any business you need to attend to around the time the bridge is flooded. Even if you carry a load, you must drop it and wait.”
But the challenges go beyond mere waiting. Residents often navigate a muddy, eroded path to the bridge, made worse by the lack of a proper drainage system. “It’s risky,” said Samuel Gabriel, a resident. “The bridge is unsafe, especially when flooded, and the road is in terrible condition. It’s affecting us all.”
“Whenever it rains, it’s not just the bridge that gets filled with water. Even the road is usually very muddy and slippery. While walking, if you’re not careful, you’ll fall. Motorcyclists are also not left out; they easily fall to the ground with their motorcycles, and in some cases, you see them struggling to stay on track while the motorcycle keeps swaying on the road.”
The dangers are real. Another resident recounted a narrow escape from disaster. “I was returning from town and thought I could cross the bridge. I slipped and almost fell in. If it weren’t for luck, I could have been a tragic news story.”
Sadly, not everyone has been as fortunate. A few years ago, a visitor to the community drowned in the stream while he was trying to cross. Victor Choji, the community’s youth leader who witnessed the incident, shared the harrowing story with JoeyOffAir.
The frustration among residents is palpable. As this reporter attempted to document the dire conditions, a passer-by, mistaking the journalist for a government official, urgently pleaded for help. “When will you fix this road?” he exclaimed. “You people come, take pictures, and disappear. Tell your government to do something.”
The community often resorts to crowdfunding for makeshift repairs to address the erosion around the bridge, but these efforts are insufficient. The bridge floods regularly because it was constructed atop an older bridge, whose tunnels are frequently clogged with refuse carried by the stream.
“Due to the blockage of the single rings beneath the old bridge, water cannot flow through as intended, forcing it to spill over the rings above the old bridge and across the surface of the bridge itself,” Choji explained.
This substandard work was reportedly facilitated by Dachung Bagos, a former federal legislator representing the Jos South/Jos East constituency in 2019. However, we could not independently verify if it was part of the zonal intervention projects during his tenure.
Many of the community’s complaints have gone unheard. In July 2016, former Plateau governor Simon Lalong visited the area and promised to fix the bridge, but that promise was never fulfilled before he left office. According to Bala Thingyin, the head of the Katon Gyese community, they have continued to appeal to government authorities to address the issue.
“We wrote to the governor and the chairman earlier this year, in February. So far, government officials have come to inspect the road and the bridge. We hope this time, our efforts won’t be in vain,” Thingyin said.
“It’s truly disheartening that in a town like this, we’re living as though we’re in a remote village. Some villages don’t even face such conditions.”
In May 2024 alone, Plateau State received ₦59.7 million in ecological funds from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), according to the National Bureau of Statistics. Between 2020 and 2021, FAAC disbursed ₦1.230 billion to the state.
“Despite billions of Naira that go into the fund annually, many states abuse the largesse,” writes Udora Orizu, a Nigerian journalist. “Without much oversight, officials of both the federal and state governments have for several years seen the ecology fund essentially as a slush fund to be deployed for all manner of things. They do not account for the money; they freely deploy it to areas of priority, often unrelated to ecological issues.”
wow this is very sad, problem IA only temporary solutions are always provided we needed a long term solution.