It has become necessary to write this letter in light of the disturbing trend of auctioning old bridges that is going on in some parts of the country.
The Vandals Are Here
I witnessed two bridges vandalized by scrab mongers along Bauchi – Kano road in the past three weeks. While the one just outside Bauchi, at Dutsen Ran, is short, the bridge at Nasaru, our border with Jigawa State, is fairly long. (See attached pictures) There are complaints from Alkaleri LGA too of the intention to dismantle similar bridges along Bauchi – Gombe road. We in Toro LGA are frightened that our bad turn is near. The bridges at Sabongari, Sabon Gida, Tilden Fulani, Gadan Toro, to mention some, may soon give way to the hammers of these vandals unless the trend is checked. Someone just told me that they have started vandalizing the bridge around Rimin Zayem.
As I drove pass Nasaru I was praying to meet the long Gadan Maiwa bridge intact. Yes, I found that it is. But for how long?
My investigations have shown that the bridges were actually auctioned to the scrab collectors by your Ministry.
Both locals in Bauchi State and my readers on social media have expressed shock at the sight of the destruction. All the bridges I mentioned above, except the short one at Ran Hill outside Bauchi are used by locals for transport of produce, fetching water, migratory herds and avoiding the bridges on the highway.
Usage
The bridges also serve the good purpose of ready alternatives should the newer bridges collapse—which they do especially now with recurrent seasonal floods. The difficulty which transporters undergo by taking very long alternative routes, where such exist, deserves the regret of your Ministry which allowed the dismantling of the old ones. Last year, the suffering of motorists from Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa States going to Kano due to the fall of the bridge at Tsamiya, between Birnin Kudu and kwanan Huguma, is an example.
Student-engineers and their teachers as well as historians are also deprived of their important tool of study. We cannot exhaust the list of uses these old bridges serve to various communities. They were built with the hard earned money of the native authorities of the different regions a century ago.
Plea
In light of the above reasons, I wish to plead with Your Honour, on behalf of all the Nigerians that have shown concern over the destructive auctions, to intervene and save the lives of these bridges, some of which are over 100 years old. Help the nation to tame the greed of officials and cut off the hands of the vandals. Please stop the execution of any title given to anyone to destroy any of the old bridges and order the complete ban on such transactions now and in the future by your officials.
I had wished to come to the Ministry and lodge a formal complaint but the opportunity is taking longer than the immediacy of aversion demands; hence my choice for an open letter which I am confident will reach you almost immediately.
My sincere regards, sir.
* Dr. Aliyu U. Tilde writes from Bauchi
