The acting Governor of Delta State, Sir Monday Onyeme, has expressed hope that the nightmare faced by motorist plying he Benin-Onitsha Expressway would soon be over with the commencement of remedial works on the failed portion of the road at Asaba-Onitsha axis.
Onyeme, while on an on-the-spot assessment of the failed portion of the roads and the internal roads in Asaba metropolis, which have been witnessing heavy traffic diversion, said the contractor handling remedial works has assured him of timely completion of one side of the dual carriage way to, ease movement of vehicles pending the end of the rainy season.
He also disclosed that with the internal roads in Asaba failing as a result traffic diversion from the failed federal roads, plans are on to also fix the roads.
He said: “As you can see, we have gone round the entire length of Nnebisi road and Dennis Osadebay Way, and we have inspected the failed portions of the road, including the areas that are failing on the Ibusa/Asaba road towards the Koka Interchange.
“Fortunately, some measures to remedy the bad spot where a truck fell on two smaller vehicles are ongoing. We have also taken note of the other failed spots, and our technical team will do their paper work and we will return to those sites as fast as possible to ensure that those bad spots are fixed.
“These roads have been there for us over the years, and I think the contractors who executed the projects did a good job, the problem as I learnt from my technical team is that these our internal road network were not meant for certain class of vehicles, but because we have failures on the Federal road which were nor attended to on time, commuter resorted to using our internal roads and the pressure on these our internal road has caused some portions to fail as we have witnessed, but we are on top of the situation, and we are going to make sure that we repair all the failed portions of the roads within Asaba.
“We also thank God that today we passed through the major failed portions of the expressway, and we saw that the Federal Government has listened to the cry of the people and have mobilized workers to work on the road.
“We asked the constructor some questions and he promised that within a week or there about, the first lane will be remedied and they will move to the other lane, and after the rainy season they will come back to site to do proper work.
“So, we thank the Federal government for responding because fixing the federal road will reduce pressure on our internal roads. So, I am happy that within the next few days, the problem associated with the failed portions of the road will become a thing of the past.
On calls by some section of people to restrict the movement of heavy duty vehicles and trucks from plying internal roads, the acting governor said: “We will continue to do our best as a State. The Federal government has already awarded the contract for the rehabilitation of the road. On our part, there is a limit to what we can do to restrict commuters, because they are Nigerians and some of them are Deltans. So, if this expressway is bad, you cannot stop trucks from passing through alternative roads, which are our internal roads. If you do that, of course, you know the economic consequences on the entire nation. So, we will keep doing our best and keep calling on the Federal government to do what they are expected to do while we also do what is expected of us as a government.”
He was accompanied on tour of the roads by the Commissioner for Works (Urban Roads), Hon. Reuben Izeze; Commissioner for Information, Dr Ifeanyi Osuoza; the Director-General, Asaba Capital Territory Development Agency, Chief Patrick Ukah; Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Festus Ahon and other top government officials.