Anyone coming into Awka, the Anambra State Capital, will not fail to see the police checkpoint at the foot of Amawbia Express Flyover. It is undoubtedly precariously situated, such that it is easy for any vehicle with brake failure to run into other vehicles lined up there. And this is indeed what happens there occasionally.
There was a case of one woman coming down from the flyover one late evening whose car’s brakes failed. She literally flew over some cars and landed on top of one car whose occupant had gone out after parking. Fortunately, there was no fatality. But recently a fatal crash happened there which involved a truck.
It rammed into the back of another truck at the checkpoint and the driver of the first truck was killed on the spot. It happened because of the checkpoint there. When vehicles are made to queue at any place where there is heavy traffic the chances of accidents are always high and many accidents caused by such abound. Once this happens, the policemen who caused the havy traffic usually flee from the scene.
It is indeed difficult to understand why the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Anambra State Command, has not prevailed on the police to either remove their road blocks there and shift further up, or quit from staying there entirely, given the threat to life their stay there is posing. Is it when something terrible happens there on a large scale that the right thing will be done?
Besides, the danger of having the checkpoint there is the traffic jam it triggers sometimes. It is particularly terrible at the other side going out from Awka where some portions of the road are bad. This turns into a motorist’s nightmare.
We believe that there are better ways that the police can achieve what they want to achieve there, without making members of the public to suffer. But the main danger remains the checkpoint on the side of the road entering Awka. What we see there is what we can call danger in incubation and the longer the police checkpoint is allowed to remain there the more likely of something bad happening.
The Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Aderemi Adeoye, once disclosed plans to mount traffic lights, a bit away from there which will be monitored by the police and which will not require motorists to stop, unless the police detect anything warranting such.
It is almost a year that promise was made and we now call on the police to make it happen in order to minimize the danger the current checkpoint could cause. Until we learn to stop things that cause danger from happening, ugly incidents will continue to happen.
