Infrastructural development in Akwa Ibom on the upbeat

•Constructs 1,700kms of roads in 3 years

Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel has constructed 1,700 kilometres of roads in the past three years, Commissioner for Works, Mr. Ephraim Inyangeyen has said.

Inyangeyen said this during an online interview programme “Footprints of Development”, anchored by the State Directorate of Brand Management.

He said some of the roads were Federal Government roads which it has not rehabilitated.

“I want to say that His Excellency, Governor Udom Emmanuel has done more roads than the Federal Government of Nigeria in the last three years. And I challenge anyone to come with a data contrary to what I have and we would be able to sit with him in public and add up

the figures.

“I believe that every road in this state belong to Akwa Ibom State government, previously constructed by the government of former Governor Godswill Akpabio. Federal Government has

not paid a dime, and the one we are currently trying to complete such as the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road, which we took over from the previous administration, is solely funded by the state government.

“You can’t own a property like this. It’s like you giving birth to children; you say they are my sons, and the mother struggles to train the children singlehandedly. When they are grown, they will not call you father.

“So, in Akwa Ibom State, virtually all our roads are constructed and maintained by the state, exclusively. Even projects by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) are our rights, not a privilege,” he said

Inyangeyen said 27 out of the 31 local government areas have been covered, even as he said the state has set out modalities to touch the remaining four before the end of its first tenure in office.

“There are too many of them to count. There is massive re-ordering in terms of infrastructure. If we sit down and painstakingly add up the roads, it would be more than 1,700kms.

Let’s look at the dual carriageway roads because the road structures that we have are in three segments. We have the dual carriageways that we called the trunk roads that open up the state, then we have what we call opening up of the rural areas, going to every local government areas to do a 10km, 15km, 20km roads in virtually all the local governments areas.

“Currently, 27 local government areas have been covered; remaining just four that are being worked on currently. And then we have what we call “the intervention”. If you go all over Uyo you will see them.

“For example, at this Wellington Bassey that we are now, if you go to the left hand side, the entire Asutan area has been turned around.

“They used to be forgotten areas; such are all over the place. But let’s start with the dual carriageways. If you go to the airport, we used to have a single-lane road leading to Oron, but today, the road has been transformed into a dual carriageway. That, when completed, the entire stretch from the airport to Okopedi, to Uya Oron, will be 28 kilometers altogether”.

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