Mkpoikana Udoma
Port Harcourt — Rivers State Governor, Siminalayi Fubara, has urged the Senate Adhoc Committee on East-West Road and Eleme-Ogoni Corridor to ensure actual commencement of reconstruction work on the deplorable East-West Road, to end the intractable sufferings experienced by the road users.
Eleme-Ogoni corridor of the East-West Road plays host to several investments and infrastructures such as the Port Harcourt refinery, Indorama-Eleme Petrochemicals Limited, two oil and gas free zones, federal ocean terminal, Nigerian Naval Training Schools, Nigerian Port Authority and other related investments.
Governor Fubara gave the charge when members of the Senate Adhoc Committee, led by its Chairman, Senator Abdul Ningi Ahmed, paid him a courtesy visit at the Executive Chamber of Government House, Port Harcourt on Wednesday.
He recalled years of deductions from FAAC account by the federal government to fund critical national projects and wondered why the East-West Road was never captured and funded especially when it leads to locations where essential national economic assets are operational.
The governor emphasised that the most deplorable sections are not even more than a length of 20 kilometer from the Eleme junction interchange bridge into Ogoniland on the East-West Road, which cannot be too expensive for the federal government to handle.
Fubara enjoined the Senate committee not to end their activities with only field assessment of the state of the road, conducting public hearing and submission of their reports, but push further to see to commencement and completion of reconstruction work on the road.
“We have always complained about the dilapidated state of the East-West Road, moreover, the Eleme junction to Onne route but nothing happened. It is a federal road, but it is my people that are suffering. So, I want to appeal to you, that it should not just be public hearing, or a question of how much was paid and not paid. You should move far from much talking to making actual commitment.”
Chairman of the Senate Adhoc Committee on East-West Road and Eleme-Ogoni Corridor, Senator Abdul Ningi Ahmed, informed the governor that their visit was predicated on a motion adopted by Senate concerning the East-West Road and they are physically assessing its current condition with public hearing to come later, which will assist in the reconstruction of the road to required standard.
The governor later took the Ad-hoc Committee on a visit to the failed portions of the Eleme section of the road.
