Mustapha Muhammad Tukur

A trailer loaded with goods on Thursday afternoon crashed in Gidan Dare area of sokoto and fell inside a gutter by the roadside thereby causing a gridlock for commuters and other road users.

The road, which is deep in a residential area, has in recent times, become an alternative road for people coming from Sokoto city centre to Runjin Sambo and the Usmanu Danfodiyo University due to the ongoing construction of flyover at ‘Dandima’ by the Sokoto state government.

On the eve of the commencement of the project, many social commentators advised the state government to renovate the possible alternative roads so that road users could access it smoothly without any difficulty.

Daily Star Correspondent who was an eyewitness to the incident reported that the road was a one-lane road and that the trailer was coming on the one side and a lorry loaded with sand was moving on the other, out of impatience, the trailer driver wanted to manuever his way past the in-coming lorry but ended up in a gutter.

A resident of the area, who identified himself as Babangida, told Daily Star that the incident was caused as a result of the recklessness of the driver.

“I blame the trailer driver because he’s too young and lack experience to drive such a big vehicle.

“If not for the mercy of Allah, it would have fall [sic] on people’s houses”, he said.

He also blamed the incident to the bad state of the road, thereby calling on Sokoto state government to improve the standard of the road so that it could accommodate all types of vehicles pending the completion of the flyover construction.

“If you look you’ll see that the road is in a very bad state which has been abandoned for long.

“Had it been the road is intact, I am sure this wouldn’t have happened.

“I therefore call on the state government to come to our aid and renovate the road”, Babangida added.

One of the Engineers at the construction site told Daily Star that the least that could be done would be to extend and renovate the alternative roads.

“The road where this incident happened can’t be expanded, rather people have to bear with us as we’re doing our possible best to see that we finish on time so we can open the road for normal use”, the engineer said.