Isaac Anumihe, Abuja
Nyanya, a suburb of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja means many things to many people. It signifies a melting point for poverty, power and prosperity. It is a settlement characterised by endless traffic challenges and permanent scare of multiple bomb blasts.
Nyanya has come to be known as Abuja’s residential area where crime and criminality intermingle with relatively quality but cheap cost of living and affordable products. It can also best be described as a one-stop community for every human need. It is very strategic because it has the only interlink road that connects Abuja and many states in the Middle Belt like Plateau, Nasarawa and Benue. Nyanya Road undoubtedly can rightly be described as the busiest road in the FCT.
It is a border town to Nasarawa State and residence for low-income earners and the underprivileged. Nyanya is one of the most populated settlements in the FCT, harbouring the poorest of the poor. Almost 60 per cent of the workforce in Abuja reside within Nyanya and environs like Jikowyi, Mararaba, Masaka, Akwanga and Keffi.
Little wonder Nyanya has over the years become a soft target for the weakening, evil-minded and tricksters due to its large population. It has equally assumed the status of a hub where people do not sleep but in constant search for daily bread.
Its disposition was responsible for the mayhem Boko Haram unleashed multiple bombasts on the residents in 2014 that claimed the lives of over 100 innocent persons.
Nyanya is equally reputed for a community where soldiers massacred over 100 Shiite Muslims in cold blood. Most pathetically, Nyanya Road recorded more accidents in the nation’s capital than anywhere else in the FCT. Incidentally, the accidents occurred at a particular spot, raising concern that the black spot is laced with evil spirit.
Penultimate week, the particular spot recorded a fresh casualty when two trailers mysteriously swerved into a ditch, killing the drivers and the motor boys. It was a regrettable reminder of the past when accidents were recorded almost on daily basis.
Many reasons have been adduced for the frequent occurrence of accidents along that particular spot on the Nyanya Road with popular narrative hanging it on fetishisms. The belief, which has become acceptable as the cause of the accidents was that worshippers converting a popular canal under bridge into a worship centre where all manners of sacrifices are carried out is responsible for the spate of accidents.
In reality, spiritual baths, sacrifices and all sorts of cleansings for religious worshippers with spiritual problems ranging from barrenness and economic misfortunes were carried out almost every night.
Cutting across religious divides, Muslim and Christian spiritual heads conduct vigils and prayers under the cover of the bridge usually aimed at exorcising deadly spirits from “possessed” victims. In the belief of many, the negative demons at play in the area are responsible for the accidents.
Despite the fervent prayers by Pentecostal churches, the ugly road crash situation has persisted. Their prayers seem to have only provided temporary solution and succour to the residents, for after the reduction of accidents for some time, it reared its ugly head again.
Only last month, the two trucks that mysteriously veered into the gutter near the deadly canal rubbished the prayer. The disaster evoked fresh memories of the past days when the area recorded similar inexplicable happenstances.
The timing of the accident also coincided with a similar accident last year when a multiple car accident involving nine vehicles left 10 persons dead, and several others injured. The accident was caused by brake failure of a tipper heading to a building site in Nyanya with gravel.
Although an eyewitness and resident of Karu community attributed the accident to brake-failure, many believed it was not unconnected with the sacrifices, which unleash lots of blood-thirsty demons on the road.
A hawker, identified as Mohammed, who witnessed last months’ accident told Daily Sun: “If the occupants of the trailers were alive they would have told us what happened. Only God knows what happened that two trailers would choose to plunge into a ditch near the canal at the same time. It was like those trailers were claiming right of way, one following the other closely. The next thing we heard was a loud noise. Now that the drivers have died, what have they benefitted?”
Waxing spiritually, a groundnut seller, who gave her name as Blessing, argued that sometimes the spirits unleashed on the road usually cause the accidents because some of the accidents were not common: “I think evil spirits have returned to this place. Some years ago, accidents were happening at that particular spot almost every day. But after some churches prayed, the accidents stopped. They have started again. God will help us. Last year, a tipper failed brake and hit a motorcyclist and a man hawking bottle water.
“It was in the process of trying to stop the tipper that other vehicles got involved in the accident. However, it was apparent that some motorists caught-up in the crash didn’t know what to do when it was clear that the tipper’s brake had failed. The churches should come back to pray again because it is like the previous prayers have expired.”
Ikechukwu, a teenage “chin-chin” seller, corroborated Blessing’s assertion: “Something is definitely wrong with that place. How can two trailers enter a ditch at the same time? Who was pursuing them? Even if somebody was after them, must they plunge into the same place?”
However, a regular road user and citizen of Nasarawa State, Paul Rabo, maintained that regardless of the prayers from churches, intervention from the government in building an alternate road to free up the gridlock on Nyanya Road would provide the lasting solution:
“During the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo when the current governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, was the Minister of FCT, an alternative road was proposed and construction from Area 1 Abattoir–Jikowyi but unfortunately, the road has remained uncompleted till today.
“We have another route from Masaka (Luvu Road) that also links Kaduna, which when completed travellers from Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau etc don’t have any business travelling through Nyanya Road to Kaduna.
“However, the two chief executives of FCT and Nasarawa State should not underrate the economic importance of this link road. Nasarawa State Government should do something instead of being busy proposing an airport for a state that cannot pay salary.”