Reduce strangulating number of checkpoints in Igboland by 75% Group urges Chief of Defence Staff, Inspector General of Police

A group, Cultural Credibility Development Initiative (CCDI), has called on Nigeria’s Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Lucky E.O. Irabor and Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, to reduce the number of checkpoints on the highway in Igboland.

The group, in a letter, made available to GPNews, dated December 16, 2021 and signed by Chief A. G Uwazurike (President) and Pastor Steve Nwabuko (Secretary), said that they needed the intervention of the two security chiefs because of the “suffocation caused by the humongous number of checkpoints in Igboland.”

The letter noted that “a traveller from Lagos to Igboland sees checkpoints every one kilometer up to the outer ring road of Benin City. The traveller from Abuja sees checkpoints every two kilometers until he reaches Delta North fringes. The two sets of travellers then are subjected to the horror of a checkpoint every half a kilometer.”

According to the group, “the distance between checkpoints is reduced to 200 meters once a traveller crosses the Niger Bridge.  This Niger Bridge obstruction with checkpoints causes 5 kilometer back log of cars in a traffic snarl.”

They stressed that they are presenting the actual situation of things in Igboland to the security top shots, noting that “it takes about 5 hours to travel from Lagos to the outskirts of Asaba, Delta. But it takes about 6 hours to travel the distance from the outskirts of Asaba to the Niger Bridge.

“The suffering is unbearable,” the group insisted, pointing out that the letter to the two security chiefs is to seek their intervention “to have mercy on travellers by reducing the strangulating number of checkpoints by 75%.”