Many commutters of the Kaduna-Abuja road resorted to passing the night on the route after being stucked in the gridlock which persisted late into the night on Friday.
This is coming on the heels of the reopening of the route, after it was blocked by angry tanker drivers in the early hours of Friday to protest the killing of one of them by a police officer for allegedly refusing to pay N500 bribe.
The drivers insisted that Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna meet with them before they remove their vehicles.
However, the Kaduna State commissioner of internal affairs, Samuel Aruwan, said the state government has reached an agreement with the tanker drivers.
Despite the assurance of the Kaduna government, however, thousands of commuters were still stranded on the road.
Speaking on the gridlock, Malam Hafiu, who was travelling from Enugu to Sokoto, described it as a disaster.
According to him, “This is really a disaster for me. I never experienced this type of gridlock on an express road like this. We came and met this lockdown at about 3 p.m. on Friday. Nobody was moving. Thousands of cars were stranded.
“Only in my car, two little girls fainted. Children were crying in the middle of nowhere.”
A corps member, Elizabeth that she left Abuja for Kano to spend the Sallah break with her family.
“As we speak now I am so scared because it is not about just the gridlock, the road is notoriously known for banditry and kidnapping and here we are, free for kidnappers to feast on. I have been praying since we fell into this trap,” she said.
A journey of two hours eventually became about 12 hours for many of the motorists, many of whom eventually got to Kaduna on Saturday morning.
