… it’s unfair, injustice, Senate Committee
Anietie Akpan
***Governor, Prince Bassey Otu, (M), Chairman, Senate Ad-hoc Committee on East-West Road, Senator Abdul Ahmed Ningi (R), member of the committee, Senator Ikra Aliyu Bilbis ( L) during a courtesy call on the Governor on Tuesday.
Cross River State Governor, Senator Bassey Otu has decried the total neglect of the Calabar-Oron section of the East-West Road just as the Senate Ad-hoc committee said the neglect is a case of unfairness and injustice.
A press release by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Emmanuel Ogbeche said the governor made this known when he hosted the Senate Ad-hoc Committee on the East-West Road at the Dan Archibong Lodge, Calabar, on Tuesday.
Otu said, “The East-West Road is one of the several critical infrastructures that have been left to decay in our country over time. Even in this period of palliatives, if there is anything worse than not having the palliatives, then it is when the main arteries that connect the state and should help in carrying the palliatives are not there”.
Speaking further, he said there was a need for modifications to the East-West Road drawings into Calabar to avoid traffic snarls as witnessed in some major cities in the country.
While commending the Senate for its effort at the completion of the East-West Road, the governor used the opportunity to draw the committee’s attention to the Calabar-Ogoja Expressway, which he said, was in no better shape.
He expressed confidence that the President Tinubu administration will rise to the occasion and provide the much-needed infrastructural repairs and upgrades.
Otu also noted that the state has suffered over the Green Tree Agreement GTA) which ceded part of the state to a foreign country leading to the loss of its littoral assets, saying, “We have borne and bear the pain of the country over the Greentree Agreement and it is only fair that Nigeria does right for our state.
“We need more interventions and my hope is that your committee, though ad-hoc in nature, will present our case to the Senate and ease our burden”.
Earlier, Senator Ningi said the East-West Road which is supposed to represent fairness and justice of a major economic hub of the country has not met that aspiration even by four succeeding presidents starting from Olusegun Obasanjo to Umaru Musa Yarádua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari.
He said, “We have traversed the East-West Road from Bayelsa, Delta, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and now Cross River, it is disturbing what we have found in the course of this assignment, the inability of the overseeing agencies of government to come together and give the road the much-needed attention.
“There is a complete lack of synergy between the NDDC, Federal Ministry of Works, Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the states which the road passes through”.
Ningi gave the assurance that “after the first leg of this assignment, we are going to have a 2-day public hearing on why the East-West Road has remained as it is uncompleted. Who are the contractors, and what have they received, so that people will not just collect money from the federal government and disappear”?
Narrating the committee’s first-hand experience on the state of the Calabar-Itu Highway, Ningi said, “I have never seen and experienced what we saw on that road anywhere. Thousands of trucks are stuck in traffic with little or no motion. If we didn’t have the military with us and even at that, we spent over six hours plus on a major highway”.
Bemoaning the poor state of the road, Senator Ningi said, “I believe that something urgent needs to be done including the 5th and final stage of the East-West Road which is the Calabar-Oron end of the road. Yes, there is infrastructural deficit across the country, but what we witnessed, was something else on that road.”
Senator Ningi praised Governor Otu for his administrative acumen and hoped that he would bring his legislative experience to bear in the affairs of the state and urged Cross Riverians to give the governor the much-needed support to succeed.
Some members of the team include Senator Ikra Bilbis, the clerk of the committee, Foluke Ogunbayo, the South-South Zonal Director of the Federal Ministry of Works, Engr. Clement Ogbuagu, amongst others.