2km of Chaos: How Asaba-Onitsha Expressway punishes road users, businesses

FOR motorists travelling from Benin through Asaba to Onitsha, the journey is increasingly becoming a test of patience, vehicle endurance and sheer determination.

The ordeal reaches a painful climax on the roughly two-kilometre stretch from Okwe Junction to the New Building Materials Market. The section of the Asaba-Onitsha Expressway has deteriorated into a chaotic corridor of collapsed road portions, muddy shoulders, stagnant water and shattered motorable lanes, forcing cars, buses and heavy-duty trucks into desperate battle for space.

This situation is particularly severe after the Koka Flyover, where the contractor handling major repairs has concentrated work on the right lane towards Onitsha, leaving the opposite lane badly damaged. Motorists say the apparent absence of workers on the site for weeks has worsened the situation.

“So often, when heavy trucks and large buses jam the only motorable lane to and fro, you have a chaos, almost every hour of the day,” a minibus driver, Lucky Benson, told Vanguard.

He said businesses, including hotels and car wash operators along the affected side, had withered as motorists increasingly avoided the area.

The chaos compounds the hardship already experienced by travellers along the Benin-Asaba corridor.

Ifeanyi Anthony, a Delta civil servant from Agbor who works in Asaba, said commuters spend hours negotiating failed portions of the highway.

“Last week on our coming to Agbor from Asaba, we spent over two hours just to pass through Ubulu-Okiti. We also got stuck at Igbodo, Ogwashi-Uku junction,” he said.

According to him, motorists now divert through Olona-Iselu and Iselu-Uku to escape collapsed sections, putting additional pressure on the adjoining roads.

The uncompleted Okpanam bypass, expected to link the Second Niger Bridge and ease pressure on the main expressway, has further compounded the traffic burden.

For motorists, traders and commuters, the two-kilometre stretch has become more than a bad road—it is a daily economic and human ordeal.