By Rhoda Azeez
Senator Douye Diri, the governor of Bayelsa State, has expressed regret over the East-West road’s collapse and has asked President Bola Tinubu to give the Niger Delta Development Commission control over the road’s restoration in the event that the federal government’s contracted contractors are unable to complete the work. While acknowledging the President’s permission of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project, Diri stated that the East-West Road rehabilitation should take precedence over the laudable approval. Development is desperately needed in our area. Everyone has said all that needs to be said, therefore I would only add one thing.
“Before today, it would take an hour and a half or two to get from Yenagoa to Port Harcourt. For those of us who drive in convoy, you can reach Port Harcourt in one hour; however, I spent four hours travelling today from Yenagoa to Port Harcourt. There is misery among our people. The road has given way.
Therefore, even though we are grateful to the President for the coastal road, the East-West route needs to be completed right away. At the 2024 Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit with the theme “Revived Hope for Sustainable Development in the Niger Delta Region,” Diri stated on Friday in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, “If that contractor does not have the capacity, please, Mr. President, hand over that road to the Niger Delta Development Commission.”
In order to firsthand observe the misery that road users endure, Diri, who expressed his shock at the experiences of other travellers, decided to postpone his scheduled flight from Yenagoa to Port Harcourt for the summit. “Those who are travelling on that road are Rivers people, Bayelsa people, and Niger Delta people; if they are suffering, let me go and see their suffering,” I told myself when I was scheduled to fly by flight. I couldn’t believe what I saw today.
A few individuals had been there for a week. Some people have spent two days there. We do not want to be that in the Niger Delta. That’s not the Niger Delta that our ancestors imagined. Thus, I especially implore our own son, who is present in the President’s stead, to convey this message to the President and allow them to move quickly on the East-West road, Diri stated.
Godswill Akpabio, the Senate President, spoke on behalf of Tinubu during the Friday summit. Diri expressed gratitude to the President for giving the Niger Delta priority by promptly selecting a board and management team. He urged Tinubu to make sure that the project is carried out in a complimentary manner so that building is ongoing simultaneously in Calabar and Lagos. Additionally, we have just observed the building of the coastal route that would connect Lagos and Calabar. And for that, we would like to express our gratitude to the President.
“On the other hand, I would like to request that, given that construction is starting in Lagos, it should also begin concurrently from the Calabar axis of the road,” he stated. The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road Project will connect the A1, A2, A3, and A4 highway corridors, which vertically transverse the western, central, and eastern parts of Nigeria from north to south, while also passing through nine states along the country’s coastal shoreline.
The nearly N15 trillion highway project will begin in Lagos and end in Cross River State. A spur to the country’s north-central region will be included.