By Mohammed Dauda Eibo
Travelling from Jengre in Toro LGA of Bauchi State to Saminaka in Kaduna State, is now a nightmare for motorists, as one does not require a driver’s license but requires a will. The carriageway is a labyrinth of craters, a veritable quagmire of neglect. It is nightmarish, nauseating, and utterly dehumanizing . It is a hell paved in asphalt. Ironically, this same dilapidated artery remains the shortest thoroughfare to Bauchi, Gombe, Taraba, Adamawa and Borno from the North-West. Thus, thousands of commuters are compelled daily to tread this perilous route, not by choice, but by necessity.
The situation has deteriorated to such an extent that time itself has lost meaning on this road. A journey slated for a few hours often elongates into days, as vehicles stall, reverse, and meander in search of a passable path. Movement here is no longer measured in kilometers, but in survival. On this stretch, it seems more probable to encounter one’s mortality than to negotiate a safe passage past a trailer jostling for the same narrow lane. Such is the grim lexicon of our present reality.
Each time I ply this axis from Kaduna, particularly during the rains, my apprehension deepens. Downpours transform the road into an impassable morass. Hours are squandered negotiating potholes deep enough to swallow tires, only for one to end the ordeal at a mechanic’s workshop the following morning. I am filled with profound sympathy for the commercial drivers who ply this route daily. They are, in every sense, casualties of infrastructural failure.
The Saminaka – Jengre road demands urgent intervention by both state and federal authorities. Our governors, being the principal beneficiaries of this corridor, ought to lead the charge. State-owned transport outfits like Gombe Line, Yankari, Adamawa Sunshine, Taraba Transport Authority, Kaduna Line, Plateau Riders alongside Dangote trucks and countless private operators, ply this road on a daily basis. If the burden is felt first by them, then the responsibility to rehabilitate it must also begin with them.
For years, petitions and memoranda have been dispatched to the corridors of power. Traditional rulers, community leaders, and ordinary citizens have raised their voices in unison. Yet the dividends have been negligible. The repercussions are tangible: fractured axles, squandered fuel, wasted man-hours, and avoidable fatalities.
This is symptomatic of a broader national malaise. Our highways, which should serve as conduits of commerce and unity, have become emblems of embarrassment. Citizens are entitled to motorable roads that link cities and catalyze enterprise. Good roads, like grammar, are foundational. Without them, communication and in this case, transportation collapses. One of the cardinal indices of development is sound infrastructure: roads, housing, electricity, healthcare, and a buoyant economy. On this road, all are conspicuously absent.
The governors of the North-East and North-West must declare a state of emergency on this route. Its economic import cannot be overstated. Hundreds of drivers traverse it daily, purchasing fuel, patronizing mechanics, sustaining households, and conveying goods. That is the very engine of economic growth and it is currently gridlocked.
To what end is governance if its impact eludes the common citizen? Wherein lies democracy if the fundamental right to safe passage is denied? Complaints abound. Assurances are issued. Yet there are no graders, no asphalt, no visible remediation. My most recent passage on August 27, 2026, from Mararaba Gumau to Saminaka was defined not by mileage, but by dread of potholes, dread of lost time, dread of squandered resources. The Mararaba Gumau – Saminaka road is, in plain terms, a classical dead-trap.
Are the governors of the North-East oblivious to the dangers this road portends? Silence offers no explanation. Only governmental inertia does. What, then, is the role of FERMA? Has road maintenance become a selective enterprise, dictated by political expediency rather than public need?
Lives are sacrosanct. The specter of accidents on this road is harrowing: articulated vehicles and smaller cars contending for space on a fractured carriageway. From a security perspective, we are treading on gunpowder while toying with matches.
A democracy that cannot guarantee the safety of lives and property on a federal highway is a democracy on shaky foundations. How long shall this persist? Nigerians are asking. And it is a question our North-East governors must answer not with rhetoric, but with bulldozers on the Mararaba Gumau – Saminaka road. For posterity.
No sane person retires to sleep beneath a burning roof. If other arterial roads across Nigeria merit governmental attention, then the Mararaba Gumau – Saminaka road deserves equal consideration. The pot that cooks for the leopard must, in equity, cook for the lizard.
Mohammed Dauda Eibo, a Media and Communications Specialist and Language Instructor, writes from Kaduna.
