Abia: Collapse of commercial city

Sun News

2 November 2011

Abia: Collapse of commercial city

•Riding on human back becomes mode of transport

•Youths charge between N50 and N500 to ferry passengers

•Man being ferried across waterlogged road

Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. This age-long saying became true recently as residents of Ohanku, Osusu, Obohia, Omuma, Ehere in Aba, Abia State discovered a new mode of transportation – riding on the back of youths – known in the local parlance as ‘human carriers’ to beat deplorable roads that had cut them off from the city.

The youthful ‘human carriers’ in the areas are, therefore,  making brisk businesses by ferrying people on their backs across the hell-like roads.

Aba, the once flourishing commercial city in the East comparable only to Kano and Onitsha, is today a shadow of itself owing to general infrastructural decay and debilitating state of the roads.