PEDESTRIANS and motorcyclists intending to cross the collapsed Kibangari Bridge on River Kabene, Kauru Local Government Area (LGA) of Kaduna State must be assisted by youths whose services attract a fee. The ICIR visits the collapsed bridge and reports a looming humanitarian crisis in the community.
The steel bridge, built by the late President Shehu Shagari led government in 1979, connects the Kauru LGA to various parts of the state. Users can commute from the area through Mariri town in Lere LGA to Kachia and Kaduna, the state capital. The Mariri road also takes users to Kafanchan and Keffi in Nasarawa State. From Kauru, motorists and others can easily travel to Kano State and other parts of the North.
Kibangari Bridge is arguably the most important infrastructure in the Kumana district of Kauru LGA because apart from schools in dilapidated state, there is no functional public infrastructure in the area, including electricity, good road, potable water and hospital.
The district has never seen grid electricity, and its teeming population is currently among the 85 million Nigerians lacking access to power supply. The district’s deplorable roads are among the 87 per cent of Nigerian rural roads in poor condition. Similarly, the Kumana district has significant share in the over 100 million Nigerians lacking access to safe water.
The Kibangari bridge helps the movement of people and agricultural produce. Virtually all residents of the area are farmers.
“Nothing can be more painful than the fact that the bridge we consider as the only functional infrastructure from our government in this district has collapsed,” said Istafanus Yanaba, a resident of Rishuwa, one of the communities in the district.
A section of the bridge caved in in 2019 and has since been lying dangerously over the Kabene River. It not only disrupts movements and commerce in the area, but it has also been a death trap, causing many residents to drown.
At least 10 people drown in the river yearly while using the bridge, according to leaders in the area.
“It is the main bridge that links us with Lere LGA. We go through this bridge to carry out our trading activities. Similarly, to access healthcare, we must go to Saminaka, the headquarters of Lere LGA, which means we have to go through this bridge. Ever since the bridge collapsed, we have been facing a lot of difficulties, not to mention the countless lives lost as a result of the collapse of that bridge.
“We have been begging the government to help us repair it; our pleas have been to no avail,” said the head of the Kumana traditional council, Dauda Abdullahi.
The District Head of the Kumana Kingdom, Samaila Yanaba, also expressed sadness with the state of the facility. He said his district, with over 20 communities, lost much of its farm produce yearly due to lack of means to take the yields out of the district.
“This is the only bridge vehicles used to convey our goods because we are all farmers here. We use two markets: Mariri Market in Saminaka LGA and Pambegua Market, which is about 50 kilometres from our LGA.
“If we are to go to Kauru, the road is very bad, as it is in this community, until you get to the LGA headquarters. Our people are really suffering. Since one end of the bridge fell in 2019, no vehicle has driven across it. That will tell you the damage this causes our agrarian communities,” Yanaba added.
He also decried the maternal and child deaths in the area, which he blamed largely on difficulty in crossing the bridge during emergencies.
He listed some of the communities in the district as Kurama, Binawa, Surubu, Dingi, Kono, Kinugu, Rishuwa, Kuzamani, Bikai, Kiwollo, Kaibi, Kitimi, Ruruma, Rummaiya, Hausawa, Fulani, Amawa, Siyawa, Fijima, and Chawai.
The ICIR observed that another bridge under construction at the Kaibi community, along Kauru township road, is about to collapse, after gulping millions of naira. Dozens of towers, girders, beams, piers and other components of the bridge litter the surroundings. Residents said they had been there for over a decade.
Further findings showed that the Mariri-Kauru Road was among the projects whose contracts were awarded in Southern Kaduna by Governor Patrick Yakowa before his passing in 2012.
Subsequent administrations took different decisions on the contracts, including revoking, splitting, and re-awarding them to other contractors. For instance, the Governor Uba Sani administration said it concluded the Kaduna Kachia Road, which now makes travelling easier from that part of the state to the state capital.
The ICIR noted that the work ended at Kachia, while the road from Kachia to Samaru Kataf enroute Mariri and Kauru remains in terrible shape.
The contractor handling the Mariri-Kwassam road, Sadiq Abubakar, told the reporter that his company suggested to the former Governor El-Rufai’s administration that it would repair the Kibangari Bridge with N36 million when it was becoming clear that the bridge could give way. He said the request was not approved.
Abubakar, the managing director and chief executive officer of FarmTrack Ltd, said the Mariri-Kwassam road contract he got did not include the reconstruction of the Kibangari and Kaibi bridges.
The contract, awarded to him in 2016 was revoked in 2021 by the El-Rufai’s government. The contractor explained that he got five contracts from the state government on retainership basis and was paid N100 million monthly to work on the projects.
He said the money he got was only able to complete one of the projects. The El-Rufai’s government, which gave him the contracts, revoked the remaining four, including the Mariri-Geshere road.
He is currently in talks with the Uba Sani administration to enable him to continue with the projects.
He said the Geshere-Kwassam road required three billion naira when he got its contract but would require about five billion Naira to fix now.
How Kabene Bridge collapsed – Community leaders
The District Head of the Kumana Kingdom, Yanaba, said his people noticed that water was washing off the foot of the bridge in 2018. They contacted the Kauru LGA to help them fortify the abutment and save the bridge from crashing into the water.
Yabana said, “We did community work. The bridge was not here but down there. Through community effort, we built the entrance there. People packed stones and sand. We bought cement and put them there. Yet, the water overpowered the work that we did.
“When this governor came in, we pleaded with him to help us with the road. This is a very big road. From here, you can go to Kaduna, Kano, Abuja, and other places. We can only use motorcycles to convey our goods to the market. If you have 100 bags of grain from here, how can you transport them? We are really suffering. I can count more than 20 villages where people are mainly farmers from here to Kauru, which is more than 90 kilometres.”
He called on the state governor to help the communities by building the bridge.
How we lost our husbands in River Kabene – Widows
Julie Yahaya, 37, said her husband died in 2020 in the river while riding on his motorcycle across the bridge. There was no way to take him out of the village for medical treatment when he was rescued. He later died. The deceased had four children, whom his wife now struggles to fend for. The oldest child is 19, and the youngest is five.
Faith, 16, is the eldest daughter and the second-oldest child. She couldn’t finish secondary school, and her other siblings were withdrawn from school after their father died.
Another widow, Ladi Maitala, 45, lost her husband in 2020 while conveying produce from his farm to Mariri on motorcycle. She has seven children – a boy and six girls. The oldest is 22, and the youngest is 10.
Similarly, Annah Danasebe, 35, lost her husband in the river in 2023. She has since been left to fend for her three children. The oldest is 13, and the youngest is four. Two of the children are in public primary school, but the mother said life had been tough for the family since her husband died.
Kumana’s pride in agriculture
The district, in Southern Kaduna, which witnessed unprecedented insecurity under El-Rufai’s government, is now relishing a fresh breeze of peace. A testament to this is how almost every piece of land in the area was cultivated in 2025.
Rice, guinea corn, pepper, yams, tomato, groundnuts, beans, soybeans, millet, and maize are among the several crops grown in the district. Many residents confirm they would not consume 20 per cent of what they produce yearly since they overcame insecurity.
The land, nestled in a ring of rocks, is very fertile for agricultural purposes, as seen in the allure of crops and their bountiful yields across the communities in October when The ICIR visited the district.
However, many residents decried high level of waste and loss they incur over their inability to get buyers or take their produce out of the area because of the fallen bridge.
Crossing the Kibangari Bridge
It takes the help of youth in the area for anyone with a load to cross the bridge. Children, women, and motorcyclists also require their support. The youth charge their clients between N100 and N500, depending on the size of the goods and the water level.
The ICIR gathered that people who drowned in the river while crossing the bridge were mostly men who were looking for means of fending for their families. Victims also include women and children.
One of the youth who help people on the bridge, Yohanna Adams, said it would take luck and God to save people on the bridge at the peak of rainy season. “Water always covers the bridge from July to September. If you come here within this period, you will be afraid to allow us to carry you through the river if you can’t swim. Unfortunately for us in this area, we are not good swimmers, and we don’t have canoes to cross the bridge,” he stated.
Adams added that he could not recollect the number of people who had died in the river.
More residents speak on challenges posed by fallen bridge
Bako Musa works at the LGA Secretariat in Kauru. He rides his motorcycle from Geshere to Kauru, at least three times weekly. He lamented how poor the road is, and how he rides for over 60 kilometres to get to work and return home.
Phebe Yanaba decried how absence of basic amenities in the area affected education, health, and agricultural activities.
“Imagine how thousands of people in this area have been living without electricity, safe water, hospital and the likes for years. It will surprise you that it’s the same river that our people fetch and drink. Residents struggle for water with animals, during the dry season,” she said.
Kaduna government promises action
The state government has promised to fix the bridge and the road. It said it was concerned with the pains the people of the area go through.
The Commissioner for Public Works and Infrastructure, Ibrahim Hamza, told The ICIR that infrastructure deficit was a major challenge across Nigeria, and not limited to his state. He promised to fix the Mariri-Kauru road, including its bridges.
He challenged the reporter to call him by the middle of 2026 or visit the area to see the level of work that would have been done.
“In Kaduna State, you can confirm that we have constructed over 785-kilometre roads in and around Kaduna within the urban area and the rural areas. We are also working on a lot of bridges, which are going to link a lot of local governments, that is, from one local government to the other.
“As it is for that particular road that you mentioned, Kaduna State is really doing something about it. We’ve already awarded a contract from Kaura down to Pambeguwa. Between Kauru and Laduga, which is the village that has that bridge that you’re talking about, we’ve also awarded a contract for the construction of that bridge. Once that bridge is constructed, it will reduce the hours coming down from the southern part of Kaduna to the northern part of the state.
“It’s a very vital or important road to us, and I want to assure you that if we talk at the same time in the middle of next year, it will be a better story than what I’m telling you today. Be assured that the Kaduna State government is doing something about it,” he said.
Marcus bears the light, and he beams it everywhere. He's a good governance and decent society advocate. He's The ICIR Reporter of the Year 2022 and has been the organisation's News Editor since September 2023. Contact him via email @ mfatunmole@icirnigeria.org