S-East, S-South, Middle-Belt Group demands probe of federal road contracts



A pressure group, Forum of South East, South-South and Middle-Belt Advocates for Better Nigeria, FOSESSMBA, has called on President Mohammadu Buhari to urgently constitute a panel to investigate the abandoned and poorly executed federal road contracts within the three zones.
The group made the call after an interactive session held in Enugu where participants from the three geopolitical zones reviewed the plights of the people on account of the deplorable condition of federal roads and the near collapse of basic infrastructure in the area.
The group noted that apart from the over 70 kilometer Enugu – Abakaliki single-carriage Federal Highway build under Trans-Sahara highway project during the last year of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, all other federal roads in the area have totally collapsed and now impassable.
In a statement signed by its National Coordinator, Bon Onwubualili and Secretary, Tony Edike, the group observed that almost all the federal highways in the three zones, including those purportedly rehabilitated by the immediate past administration, were no longer motorable as they have been taken over by deep potholes and gullies.
The FOSESSMBA said: “As a result of the poor state of affairs, many lives and goods worth several billions of naira have been lost to frequent auto crashes while inland roads built by various state governments have been over-stretched due to diversion of heavy traffic to such roads.
“ We are aware that most of the federal roads in these regions like the Makurdi – 9th Mile Road, Enugu-Onitsha highway, Enugu-Port Harcourt highway, Owerri-Port Harcourt, Idah-Onyedega-Otuocha Road, Ankpa-Lokoja Road, Arochukwu-Ohafia Road, Owerri-Okigwe, Odolu-Nsukka-Adani-Onitsha Road had been awarded to various contractors and huge funds released to them without any appreciable job done on these roads.  And where some jobs were done, they were substandard and could not last beyond the year they were constructed, making them even worse than they were and exposing motorist to avoidable deaths.
“It is even more disheartening that some members of the National Assembly from the affected geopolitical zones had in recent past occupied key positions as Chairmen Senate and House of Representatives Committees for Works and Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA yet the federal highways which oversight they supervised are today impassable and deathtraps.
“We hereby call  on these representatives some of who are currently holding public offices to give account of their stewardship to those they represented and who are now suffering on account of deplorable infrastructure.”
The group, however, urged the president to declare a state of emergency on roads in the three geopolitical zones to save the suffering people of the area from further hardship.

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