Fix your deplorable roads, Delta govt tells FG – Tribune Online
The Federal Government has been called upon to take urgent steps to fix its deplorable roads in the state.
Addressing a news conference in Asaba, the Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, said that the deplorable state of federal roads across the country justified calls for devolution of power in the polity.
The commissioner made reference to a viral video on a failed part of Uromi (Edo)-Agbor (Delta) road which he said is a federal road.
According to him, the state government had spent enormous resources on interventions on federal roads but pointed out that some others had become dilapidated, without attention from the Federal Government.
He stressed that devolving power to component units would provide them more funds to undertake the task of infrastructural development of the states, including roads that seemed to have overwhelmed the Federal Government.
“We have continued to intervene on federal roads in the state since 2015, and some of you have had cause to accompany us on inspection of these federal roads.
“You also know that we have intervened three times on the Eku-Agbor-Uromi road which is also a federal road.
“Not long ago, we wanted to start another intervention on the road but the Federal Government said the road has been awarded to a contractor and that made it very difficult for us to do what we needed to do,” he said.
He explained that the state government had intervened on two different occasions on the road that went viral on social media.
“We were intervening on that road and other federal roads in the state until we were told by the Federal Government that the job of the road had already been awarded to a contractor.
“The road has gone very bad to the extent that commuters are going through a lot of troubles on it and we have pleaded with the Federal Government to take another look at that road because it is in a very bad shape.
“You will recall that when we revamped the Agbor Technical College, we intervened on that road and we never asked for any refunds in these interventions.
“What has become a challenge is that the Federal Government has taken far more than they can deal with in a number of these projects and that’s why people have been calling for the devolution of powers to the component units.
“This is important because when you devolve power and allow the component units to tackle these issues it means that you will also have an adjustment in the revenue sharing formula such that states will have more resources to deal with some of these issues that affect our people.
“We are very pained as a government that these federal roads are in a very terrible situation and commuters from across the country are actually going through the hellish situation to travel through these routes,” Aniagwu stated.
“All the federal roads we intervened have gulped several billions of naira and we are not even going to ask the Federal Government to refund us because what we did was to remedy the situation along those roads.
“We wish the Federal Government had given us approval for us to possibly intervene fully and that would have given us hope that we would be able to get back the funds, but even when we knew we won’t get back the funds, we have tried continuously to intervene on these roads.
“We are therefore asking the federal government to mobilise the contractors to come and work on these roads because Nigerians are going through hell along these roads,” he added.
On the recent protest against EFCC by alleged “Yahoo boys” in the state, Aniagwu urged the people to remain calm, adding that the government had ordered an investigation into the incident.
He assured that the government would continue to protect the rights of law-abiding individuals, but that it would not protect anyone found to have gone against the law.
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Fix your deplorable roads, Delta govt tells FG
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Fix your deplorable roads, Delta govt tells FG
