By Stanley Onyekwere
In a bid to ease the seemingly unending traffic gridlock, the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) has commenced improvement in the installation, rehabilitation and maintenance of traffic lights across the Territory.
In particular, the FCTA has embarked on the rehabilitation of 33 traffic light intersections out of the 172 in the city.
Inspecting the project at the weekend, the permanent secretary Mr. Olusade Adesola the first set of intersections were selected according to the priority of usage.
Adesola said the initiative was to pave way for smooth driving, and also address the perennial challenges of traffic gridlock in the Federal Capital City (FCC).
He however, explained that the current upgrade, which came with security features will connect all the traffic signals to a centra point where activities at the intersections will be monitored to bring about sanity on the roads.
He added that the rehabilitation work was part of the approved FCT 2021 budget, with additional ones awaiting the approval of Bureau of Public Enterprise.
Furthermore, the Permanent Secretary revealed that the administration had another China intervention support that would commence installation by June/July which will strengthen the traffic lights system.
This, according to him, will ultimately translate to tangible improvement in the installation, rehabilitation and maintenance of the lights across the territory.
“For sometime now, there have been issues with traffic signals in the Federal Capital City but with the award of this contract all the challenges associated with the traffic lights will be addressed”, he noted.
Adesola had started the inspection of the traffic lights project at Zakari Maimalara by Muhammadu Buhari way in the Central Business District, and ended at Kashim Ibrahim way/Anguiyi Ironsi street in Maitama District.
Also speaking, the Mandate Secretary FCT Transportation Secretariat, Zakari Angulu Dobi said adequate measures will be put in place by the secretariat to safeguard the millions naira worth traffic lights infrastructure scheme.
Dobi said: “The project is going to be for one year, but with 2022 budget it can be extended to 3 years, considering its importance”.
On his part, the contractor handling the project, Engr Adewale Ikatun explained that the project, which is rehabilitation and reactivation of some intersections had commenced in the last two weeks, and will last for three months in the first phase.
