The Federal Government has kick-started fresh measures to rehabilitate all dilapidated highways including the Kaduna-Kano dual carriageway with a view to reducing accidents.
Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on media and publicity, disclosed this in a statement in Abuja on Monday.
Shehu, who featured in an interview programme on the Abubakar Rimi Television station in Kano, said that provision for the reconstruction of the Kaduna-Kano highway had been made in the 2017 budget.
According to him, the current administration has always been mindful of the dilapidated nature of the road.
He stated that the Kaduna-Kano road reconstruction project was a carryover from 2016 budget.
“President Buhari has not been deaf to the cries of the people of Kano as some have been insinuating.
“Other projects, such as the Kaduna-Abuja highway, had to be given priority because of the temporary closure of the Abuja Airport Runway.
“It’s not as if the Buhari administration preferred to cater to the roads in Kaduna instead of those in Kano and other parts of the country,’’ he added.
The presidential aide further highlighted similar road construction projects in other parts of the country which had been adequately provided for in this year’s budget to include the second Niger Bridge and the Abuja-Abaji-Lokoja highways.
Other approved road projects, according to him, included the Lagos-Ibadan, Kano-Maiduguri and the Enugu-Port Harcourt highways.
He revealed that N7.5billion had also been earmarked for the rehabilitation of the Obajana junction – Benin and Onitsha-Enugu Dual carriageway while N7 billion was allocated for the Bodo-Bonny road in the Niger Delta area.
Shehu disclosed that the Ilorin – Jebba, Odukpani-Itu, Kano-Katsina and Gombe-Numan-Yola had also been identified and earmarked for rehabilitation and reconstruction.
He said: “I assure Nigerians in every part of our country that there is no need to feel left out of the government’s plans for development.
“The Buhari administration has made adequate provision for every part of the country in the budget.’’
It would be recalled that the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), in its 2016 Road Transport Data, released in Abuja in May, revealed that 11, 363 road accidents were recorded in Nigeria in 2016.
The report said that speed violation was reported as the major cause of the accidents in 2016, which accounted for 33.86 percent of the total road accidents reported.
According to the report, loss of control and dangerous driving followed closely as they both accounted for 15.43 per cent and 8.53 per cent of the total road accidents recorded in the period under review.
The report also indicated that a total of 30,105 Nigerians got injured in the accidents recorded in 2016.
“Twenty-eight thousand two, hundred and fifty (28,250) of the 30,105 Nigerians that got injured, representing 94 per cent of the figure, are adults, while the remaining 1,855 Nigerians, representing six per cent of the figure are children.
“Twenty-two thousand, seven hundred and five (22, 705) male Nigerians, representing 75 percent were injured in the accidents in 2016, while 7,400 female Nigerians, representing 25 per cent got injured,’’ the report said.