Wants government to expedite action
Motorists and residents of the Abia axis of Umuahia-Ikwuano- Ikot Ekpene Road say they are impressed with the work done so far, but pace is slow
They said the road, has been in a bad state since 2016 and having started work on the there, one had expected it would have been completed.
Mr Sunday Kanu, a security man living at Ogbuebule in Ikwuano LGA, Abia where the road passed said though the speed of the reconstruction had been slow, he was impressed that it had not been abandoned.
“So I cannot say that I am satisfied by it but the construction workers come to site. The company workers came to work today but left when the rain began to fall heavily,” he said.
Another resident, Chigozie Daniel a native of Ekebedi, Ikwuano Umuahia North LGA in Abia, who use the road said the company should increase the speed of the work.
“Now that the rain is coming, they should ensure that they increase the speed of their work in order not to experience further delay by the rain,” he said.
A motorcy rider who plies the road, Ndubuisi Ogah, said the road had been bad for a long time but that they had continued to use it.
He said that the contractors were working as could be seen in stretches like Isiala and other segments of the project already completed.
Another resident, Mr Abraham Osondu said the pace of work on the road could be a product of the amount of money by the Federal Government.
He said this did not imply that the road had been abandoned by the contractor nor that the contractor lacked the capacity to handle the project.
Osondu, therefore, said the completion of the road which had been under reconstruction for six years depended largely on funding.
Mrs Grace Gbagi the Public Relations Executive of the Construction Company, the contractors, that the company was on site had not abandoned the project.
Gbagi said that this was contrary to claims in some quarters that the the Federal Government had abandoned the road.
“Our workers have been working on different stretches of the road as you can see although we faced some challenges which you can verify from the Federal Ministry of Works, Umuahia office,” she said.
The road awarded to Heartland Civil Engineering Construction Company in 2019 had suffered setbacks which had impeded its timely completion.
The Federal Executive Council on February 3, 2025 approved an augmentation of about N14.37 billion to ensure completion of the road.
The road reconstruction is being funded through the Road Tax Credit Scheme by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited.(NAN)
