Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, has lamented the collapse of the East-West road, calling on President Bola Tinubu to hand over the reconstruction of the road to the Niger Delta Development Commission if the contractors engaged by the Federal government would fail in delivery.
Diri, who acknowledged the President’s approval of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project, said that though the approval was commendable, the reconstruction of the East-West Road was a priority.
“Our region is in dire need of development. Everything has been said by everybody here, and for me, there is just one thing that I would say.
“Prior to today, the journey between Yenagoa and Port Harcourt is either one and a half hours or one hour. For those of us who even come with the convoy, one hour you are in Port Harcourt, but today, I travelled four hours between Yenagoa and Port Harcourt. Our people are suffering. That road has collapsed.
“So, while we appreciate Mr. President for the coastal road, there is a need to immediately go into the East-West road. If that contractor does not have the capacity, please Mr. President, hand over that road to the Niger Delta Development Commission,” Diri said in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, on Friday at the 2024 Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit themed “Renewed Hope for Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta Region”.
Diri, who said he was devastated by the experience of travellers along the road, said he chose to shelve aside his planned trip by air from Yenagoa to Port Harcourt for the summit to personally witness the nightmare of users of the road.
“I was arranged to travel by air and I told myself ‘those who are traveling on that road are Rivers people, are Bayelsa people and Niger Delta people and if they are suffering, let me go and see their suffering’ and I couldn’t believe what I saw today.
“Some people have been there for one week. Some have been there for two days. That is not the Niger Delta that we want to be. That is not the Niger Delta our forefathers dreamt about. And so I appeal particularly to our own son who is here representing Mr. President to take this message to Mr. President and let them act fast on the East-West road,” Diri said.
The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio, represented Tinubu at the summit on Friday.
Diri, however, appreciated the President for “prioritising the Niger Delta by appointing a board on time and a management team on time.”
He called on Tinubu to ensure that there is a complementary approach to the execution of the project to ensure there is concurrent construction from both ends in Lagos and Calabar.
“We have also witnessed recently the construction of the coastal road that is going to run from Lagos to Calabar. And we want to appreciate and thank the President for that.
“However, I would like to appeal that as the construction is commencing from Lagos, let it also have a concurrent commencement from the Calabar axis of the road,” he said.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal road project will traverse nine states along Nigeria’s coastal shoreline while linking the A1, A2, A3, and A4 highway corridors vertically crossing the western, central and eastern regions of the country, north to south.
Starting from Lagos and terminating in Cross River State, the over N15 trillion highway project will include a spur to the north-central part of the country.