Nanumba roads deteriorate, scaring away investors

A DEVELOPMENT planner and concerned citizen of the Nanumba North District, Mr. Kadiru Abukari, has described the deteriorating nature of roads in the district, as “a strain on the living conditions of the people in the district.”

Though one of the oldest districts in the Northern Region, the Nanumba North District cannot boast of single tarred road linking the area to major towns in the region, he lamented, indicating that the situation was making achievement of the development goals of the district a mirage.

Speaking in an interview with The Chronicle, Mr. Abukari was worried that successive governments had paid lip service to the people of the area, regarding the tarring of their roads, but had failed to do little or nothing to fulfill their promises.

He said apart from a very small portion within the district capital, Bimbilla, which has been tarred, movement in and out of the district has always become a nightmare for not only drivers, but also commuters, all year round.

“It is high time an alarm is raised regarding the poor road network system in the Nanumba North District in the Northern Region,” he decried.

Delving into the effects of the deteriorating nature of the roads on the development of the area, the development planner noted that agriculture, which the district could boast as a major economic activity, was on the brink of collapse due to the bad state of the road network.

According to him, about 80% of the population in the district, survived on agriculture as a means of livelihood, both in sustenance and commercially.

He sadly noted that the nature of roads in the district put the farmers at the mercies of drivers, who usually charged high fares, and middlemen, who exploited the farmers to their advantage.

“The situation is also discouraging the youth from engaging in agricultural activities in the area, because at the end of the day, one may not be able to recoup his or her capital invested in farming,” Mr. Abukari said.

He also attributed the district's inability to attract investors, despite enormous land and other resources in the area, to the bad nature of the roads.

He made a passionate appeal to the government, to leave remarkable legacy, by giving the situation urgent attention, and ensuring that the area was connected to other districts, and opened up for accelerated development.

As a development practitioner, who believes in active community participation, Mr. Abukari urged well-to-do citizens of the Nanumba North District, both home and abroad, to contribute their quota to the development of the area in this direction, indicating that well-meaning citizens could pool resources and tar some of the roads.

This, he believed, would urge other philanthropists on to come to the rescue of the district.