Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, has come out to carp at the poor conditions of the East-West Road, urging the federal government to intervene on the East-West Road while deploying scarce resources towards building the Coastal Highway from Lagos to Calabar.
Diri stated this while speaking at the 2024 Niger Delta Stakeholders Summit themed ‘Renewed Hope for Sustainable of the Niger Delta’ held in Port Harcourt, Rivers state.
The governor further beckoned on the Federal Government to ensure that the coastal highway section from Calabar down to the southernmost states should be given similar attention as the Lagos to Calabar axis.
He said, “Let me also use the opportunity to appreciate President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for prioritizing the Niger Delta by appointing a management team on time. We have also observed 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.
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“Nonetheless, I like to appeal that the construction commences from the Lagos and Calabar axis, concurrently.
“Everything has been said by everybody here and for me, there is just one open thing that I will say, before 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 a convoy, formerly in one hour, You’ve arrived at Port Harcourt. But today, I traveled over 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 tackle the East-West road.”
Also speaking at the event and representing the president as the special guest of honor, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, said, “The board of the NDDC is expected to work towards delivery of the Presidential Renewed Hope Agenda priorities. We are also aware that there have been a lot of complaints about the Niger Delta Development Commission. And I want to use this opportunity to appeal and also direct that this time around, we need to change the narrative.
“Let me say on my part as a son of the Niger Delta. The East-West Road would have been completed under my tenure as the Minister of the Niger Delta during the last administration. But some stakeholders of Ogoni extraction led a delegation to meet with the then President, Muhammadu Buhari, to inform him that they do not want the Ministry of Niger Delta to complete the Road.
They wanted the road to be transferred to the Ministry of Works at that time headed by my brother, the former Governor of Lagos State, Fashola. I was in shock. We had just secured about N75bn as cash in hand to conclude at least particularly from Eleme junction when that came. And the President said well if that was what you want, so be it. Therefore the road at that time was then transferred to the Ministry of Works which had no budget for it that year.”
It is worth noting that in his welcome address, the Chairman of the occasion and former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, said part of the reason the Niger Delta Development Commission was struggling to deliver on its mandate to the region was due to the interference of politicians, who he said, were ‘over-stretching’ the agency.
He stated, “The first leadership of NDDC led by Onyema Ugochukwu as the chairman of the board and chief Timi Alaibe who was the Executive Director, Finance and Administration and he later became the Managing Director showed some clear leadership and it appears as if the Niger Delta was moving to some direction but after that leadership.
I think NDDC got involved with too many politicians, and we the politicians took over the NDDC, and their progress was slowed down, their activities were slowed down”
It remains to be seen how things progress for her.
