By Chioma Iruke
Faulks road, a popular road in Aba the commercial nerve center of Abia State, also known as Enyimba City in South East Nigeria, has been a subject of conversation due to its dilapidated state.
Despite its closeness to the popular Ariaria International Market, the road has been abandoned even after several efforts and promises to fix it from various administrations. It is almost impossible to drive through from Brass Junction to Enugu down to Port Harcourt Express Road especially during the rainy seasons.
There is however a myth that elephants had been encouraged to trample on the water-logged soil around Faulks Road to make it tougher, hence, the nickname ‘Enyimba City’. Other residents nurse the belief that the road remains unfixable because of the alleged activities of a certain ‘Ama Ikonne’ (marine spirit) that is believed to live around an area popularly called ‘7-Deck’.
Construction Efforts By The Current Administration
In 2015, Abia State Governor, Okezie Ikpeazu, flagged off the reconstruction of Faulks Road with a contract sum of N6.8bn awarded to an indigenous contractor, Bills Limited Civil Engineering Company, to reconstruct Faulks Road along with 6 other road projects.
After revoking the contract, international contracting company Setraco were contracted. The company brought in water management engineers from the Netherlands to design a high-tech engineering solution after a detailed study of the project. That presented a viable solution to the Ifeobara flood control aspect of the total project.
The Abia State Commissioner for Information, Chief John Okiyi Kalu, in a post on social media, had claimed that construction work on the road was ongoing up to completion stage. So far, the Ikpeazu administration claims that more than 70% of the 9.6km road aspect executed and the initial binding course implemented, have been completed.
Governor Ikpeazu had opened the road temporarily to ease traffic in 2019 to afford President Muhammadu Buhari seamless passage into Ariaria Market to commission the Ariaria Independent Power Project attracted by his administration and executed by the Rural Electrification Agency (REA) of the Federal Government. But this temporary opening has become somewhat permanent.
After the visit of the President, the Governor considered closing portions of the road to enable Setraco execute the laying of the wearing course (asphalting) of the road but decided that doing so would hurt the business of traders who were gearing up for the business of the yuletide season. Thus, he directed Setraco to return to site late in December 2019 when the traders must have travelled for the season with the market shut down to continue the work. But the company appealed that their workers would have closed for the season to resume in January 2020.
The Governor had in 2021 also, announced the renaming of the popular Faulks Road Aba after the late Governor of Old Imo State, Sam Mbakwe.
Eye Witness Report
In April 2021, the road which Chief Kalu claimed had been 70% completed, experienced serious flooding. Kalu in another post would chastise those sharing photos of the incident o social media.
According to him, “With the work done along Faulks – now Sam Mbakwe – Road, the government realized the need to tackle flooding within Ariaria market, especially at A-line, which was made worse by the new elevation of the reconstructed Faulks Road. A decision was made by the State Executive Council to reconstruct A-line as well as remodel the market shops to deliver a more befitting modern market. But for some reasons, some established traders resisted the effort and even promised to fix the challenge themselves rather than relocate temporarily to a designated area within the market complex.”
The Commissioner further noted that persons like Chief Goddy Udunna (Papa Nnukwu), Elder John Agwata, Chief Sunday Ekpechi (Sunny Black), Mr Emmanuel Ohia (Emma Etalo), Chief Felix Igwebuike Okpara (Emmy Pat) had posed as a resistance to the government’s efforts to remodel and fix the area.
Although the government had further given a maximum of 4 weeks’ notice to ‘unscrupulous’ elements, more than 16 weeks later, it seems like the Abia State Government hasn’t been able to put their house in order.
In a video made available to Heritage Times by an indigene, the road is clearly still unmotorable and very similar to its original state. This is aside the fact that the environmental and sanitary condition of the area is nothing to write home about.
The area also suffers traffic congestion, especially the popular 7deck, Ikonne, as the best means of transportation around the area is a motorcycle (Okada).
Contrary to the statement of the State’s Information Commissioner, there are no tractors nor workers on site as residents confirmed to, that the last time work was done on the road was in June.
The Project
The project has four major components:
Part 1
- Dredging of the lowest point in Aba, the Ifeobara pond, to enable it collect and pump out storm water from the area.
- Tunnelling from the pond to Waterside which is the major storm water collection point in Aba.
- Installation of pumps at the pond and along the pipe way to pump water in case of over flow into Ifeobara
- Construction of the 4.8km dualized road.
Part 2
- 4.8km length dualized road from Brass junction to Express junction making up a total of 9.6km road of 8m width on each side.
- 10km drainage covering the full length of the road all the way through Aba – Owerri Road to Margaret Avenue from where a massive underground drainage pipe of about 12 feet height carries storm water to Aba River (Waterside) near Eziama High School, Aba.
- Six laybays for vehicle parking along the road.
- 10km kerbs along the road with 9km covered slabs
- Three units of roundabout at Brass junction, Express junction and Okigwe Road junction along the road.
In addition to the above, there were construction activities designed around Ifeobara basin area, the area principally responsible for the perennial flooding of Faulks area of Ariaria market, close to A-line. This aspect of the work is principally meant to control flooding around that area.
- Laying of 5.5km pressure pipe to Ifeobara pond. It should be noted that this is different from gravitational pipes that are designed to channel water without any need for a pressure pump.
- Excavation and expansion of Ifeobara pond to collect more storm water from the area prior to being pumped out to Aba River.
III. Installation of high pressure intermittent water pumping machines.
- Building of a plant house with two new massive electricity generating sets that power the pumping machines.
- Channelling of storm water from A-line Ariaria to Ifeobara pond.
