Nigeria Roads to Stop Forking Over Metal

LAGOS, Nigeria —  This country’s homemade cutlery industry is going to lose a key raw material in 1987--the corrugated metal barriers on federal highways.

After years of vain attempts to stop the theft of lane dividers to make spoons, the minister of works and housing, Abubakar Umar, pledged to replace them with concrete walls. He said concrete barriers have proven safer than metal ones. Traffic safety experts say that long gaps in highway barriers contributed to accidents that took 9,200 lives in 1985.