Avoidable danger: How open manholes ‘swallow’ people on Nigerian roads

Besides gridlock and portholes, manholes are a major challenge on Nigerian roads. As useful as they are, manholes can also be dangerous, more so when they are compromised by enemies of society who go out of their way to remove their covering, leaving them open.

Nigeria has no statistics of people who have died through accidents, but they are quite many and these include a good number of citizens who are, almost on daily basis, being swallowed by uncovered manholes that dot most of the country’s streets, roads and even bridges.

Manholes are created on roads in order to provide access to pipes for cleaning, removing blockages, and allowing condition assessment inspections by maintenance crews. It is usually covered, but across many cities of Nigeria, especially Lagos and Abuja, many manholes are open, and many residents of these cities have fallen victims of those open holes.

Read also: Why are our manhole covers going missing in Lagos?

But for providence and divine intervention, the family of one Edet, who resides in Lagos mainland, would have been thrown into mourning as the man’s wife fell into an open manhole at Ijesha Express along the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway.

It took sympathisers about 40 minutes to rescue Edet’s wife from the open manhole. Though the woman came out alive, she sustained different degrees of bruises that tell her story of a near-death experience.

Speaking to BusinessDaySunday about her ordeals, Mrs Edet said: “We were coming back from a church meeting that fateful Friday night. Thank God that I was in the company of a Sister. Otherwise, it would have been another story entirely. As I tried to move, before I realised it was an open manhole, I had fallen inside the ditch and was covered by water. The Sister that was with me started to shout and people gathered. They continued to ask her, are you sure somebody is inside there? They ran to the Lord’s Chosen Church to look for a ladder, but they found none. Eventually, they found a rope which they threw to me. I held the rope and the men dragged me out. I was there for more than 40 minutes. It was a close shave with death. I sustained injuries all over my body.”

Similarly, in Ketu, a Lagos suburb, it also took divine providence to rescue a woman known as Gladys Anichebe who narrowly escaped slipping into an open manhole at Alapere Bus Stop. It would have been a terrible experience for the family of that middle-aged woman who was rushing to catch a bus to Lagos Island.

Anichebe was lucky as a bystander who was watching her swiftly shoved her aside and thus, prevented her from falling into the manhole.

The same luck did not, however, smile at another woman called Adewura Bello, a 26-year-old accountant, whose story made headlines, especially on social media platforms. Adewura allegedly lost her life on her way home from work. An FIJ report says she fell into a manhole in Gowon Estate, a pioneer housing estate in Lagos, from where she ended up in the canal. Her remains were found several days after she had gone missing.

Another victim, a civil servant, also fell into an open manhole in the Onipanu area of Lagos and his dead body wasn’t retrieved until some days later. The victim, who was identified as Tajudeen Amololo, was a drainage worker that was trapped in an underground tunnel.

Ikechukwu Okuhu, a media practitioner, recently shared his experience of how he narrowly escaped entering into an open manhole in Victoria Island, Lagos. “The street is Sokono or something like that. It is off Adetokunbo Ademola Street, opposite AP Plaza. That was where the near-miss incident happened,” Okuhu said.

“Yesterday, I did a headcount of the number of open manholes on that street and the tally was 11. Each of them is a risk to lives and limbs of some people,” he added.

Read also: Manhole: Safety and health issues

Manholes also pose danger to motorists who, especially during rainy season when open ones are covered by water, enter these holes with serious damage to their vehicles and injuries to the drivers.

James Eze, a banker working in Ikoyi Lagos, left his office after work on a Friday evening. It had rained heavily a few hours earlier. Unknown to him, he drove through Kingsway Road and just after making a detour to join Awolowo Road by Marble House, he fell into an open manhole. Though he came out unhurt, his car was towed to his house from there because it was badly damaged.

Similarly, in Abuja, despite plying Jabi Park Road for more than five years, Stanley Emmanuel was injured after falling into one of the manholes in the night.

“The incident happened on my way home after work. I fell into one of the manholes. I was lucky that it was not a deep one because I might not have been alive to tell the tale.

“It was after a rainfall and the hole was filled up with water and there was no light; so, I missed the pavement and plunged into the hole,” Emmanuel recalled.

Open manholes are no respecter of locations, but they are more prevalent on roads in city suburbs. In Lagos, there are open manholes even in Ikoyi- a highbrow location in the city. On Bank Road, for instance, there is a number of open manholes by Passport Office and Alagbo Close area.

On Lagos mainland, in places like Ojodu Berger and Ikeja, Onipanu and Egbeda, Ojuelegba and Surulere, there are many uncovered manholes and, obviously, it is like that in many other parts of the state, including on bridges, especially Eko Bridge and Carter Bridge.

In Abuja, there are also open manholes and part of the reasons for these, according to report, is because an estimated N46 billion worth manhole covers pile away as a three-year-running court case lingers while internal politics stalled alternative measures by the Federal Capital territory Administration (FCTA) department.

In the heart of Abuja, there is a plethora of uncovered manholes that pose risks to residents especially at night and during the rainy season when they are filled with water. Taking a stroll through the city, one is confronted with open manholes on bridges and streets.

To say that manholes, also known as utility or sewer holes, are important part of roads furniture is to emphasise the obvious. They are openings that lead to confined spaces such as utility vaults or large vessels. They are often used to cover up access points for making connections, inspection, valve adjustments or performing maintenance on underground or buried public utility such as water pipes, sewage drains, electricity and telephone wiring among other things.

It is, therefore, surprising to find out that the covering of these important holes is either vandalised or stolen by people who do not have public interest at heart. These, according to findings, are mostly “scavengers” who pick anything they can lay their hands on for personal gains.

In Abuja as in Lagos, there is high incidence of manhole theft. At the popular Berger Junction, most covers are missing, but to protect pedestrians and motorists, the holes have been filled with sand, thus blocking the holes which is a major environmental problem in the city and its residents.

The grating covers of manholes on the bridge close to Abuja City Gate, as well as those that surround the MKO Abiola Stadium, are also missing. At Magic Land Amusement Park and on the Musa Yar’Adua Expressway, the scenario is the same.

Similarly, the manholes in front of the China Chamber of Commerce have no covers and have been filled with sand and dirt. At Mabushi, the manhole covers are missing; even those close to the police divisional headquarters.

In Lagos, the stealing incidence is so high that residents have accused the state government of negligence of its duties of protecting such important road furniture. Many of the unsavoury incidents that have taken place as a result of uncovered manholes have been blamed on government’s inaction.

But in May this year, the state government issued a warning against the vandalism and theft of public assets. According to Tokunbo Wahab, the Lagos State Commissioner for Environment and Water Resources, theft and vandalism of government property, especially those that are valuable and profitable, have become common.

For that reason, he said, “anyone caught in vandalism and sale of items like railings on sidewalks, bridges, railroad tracks, iron from concrete barriers, as well as manhole covers, will face the law.”

But reports have it that the removal of those coverings has continue to flourish because there is a ready market for them in some parts of the state. For instance, at Owode Onirin, a kilogramme of iron scrap sells for N500, while it costs N400 at the New Garage area, according to an FIJ report.

“This means if a manhole cover weighs 10kg, one can earn N5000 or N4000, or even more if one is able to negotiate with the buyer,” the report notes.

It has been a matter of concern for both government and citizens what to do to end the theft and vandalism of these coverings and also end the unfortunate incidents that follow the inaction.

“I believe that there’s so much that the government can do to stop this unholy act,” Ben Udeme, a construction engineer, told BDSunday, explaining that apart from deploying special road marshals to guard that road furniture, government can as well go after those who buy from the thieves.

Udeme commended the Federal Capital Development Authority (FCDA) which has decried the increasing theft of the manhole covers and moved ahead to carry out an audit of the facilities during which they discovered that 25,000 manhole covers of various sizes have been stolen.

According to him, the FCDA has decided to deploy technology to protect and track those coverings, recommending such measures for other parts of the country where the incidence is high, especially Lagos.