LAST Saturday, James had travelled from Port Harcourt to Enugu. He had expressed surprise on alighting at the Gariki Park in Enugu and had exclaimed, “You mean we are already in Enugu? This is unbelievable!” The last time he travelled on the road (seven months ago), it took the vehicle about six hours to wade through the muddy road to Port Harcourt.

Overwhelmed with joy over the short time it took him to get to Enugu, he declared that the rehabilitation on the road has given much relief to travelers, urging that it should be sustained on all roads across the country.

According to him, what used to be Enugu-Port Harcourt highway and others like that in the South-East had been nightmares to travellers.

This is as a result of ugly scars on the dual carriage roads caused by deterioration of the road that hindered free movement of goods and people. The situation of the road became so deplorable that much harsh and horrendous words were used to describe it, all in an attempt to call attention of federal authorities to the suffering of the masses.

Transporters, who resorted to making detour in villages around the deplorable road to either get to Umuahia, Aba or Portharcourt had threatened action against the government should it fail to rehabilitate the road before December of last year.

On several occasions, men of the underworld laid siege on the highway dispossessing commuters of money and other valuables, especially at the Lokpanta Junction near Abia State, where Hausa Cattle traders now use as parking lot for trailers.

[b]Perhaps, it was in response to this cry by residents and road users that the Minister of State for Works, Bashir Yuguda, toured the road and other federal roads in the zone on September 2, last year, where he stated the desire of the Federal Government to repair them using the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency [FERMA].

He had said that immediate repairs would begin as soon as the rains eased, stressing that the same level of repair would be carried out in other failed roads in the zone with December 2012 as completion deadline.

Yaguda who inspected the Enugu-Onitsha highway, the Ekulu River Bridge, Emene along Enugu-Abakaliki highway and the Enugu-Port Harcourt road, added that the Federal Government had as at then paid N7 billion to the construction company handling the rehabilitation of the Enugu-Onitsha highway and reassured the people of the South East zone of its determination to complete all ongoing road rehabilitation projects in the area.

Travelling through some of the roads last week, especially the Enugu-Port Harcourt, through Abakaliki and Onitsha, it was observed that considerable rescue work had been carried out on the roads, making them motorable again.

It was further observed that the double lanes on the Enugu-Port Harcourt highway had been restored save for an area near Ihube where one of the contractors, Setraco, was still battling to fix[/b].

A traveler, Ndubuisi Ene told The Guardian that the prompt response of government to complaints of the people over the state of the road commendable.

He urged constant monitoring of the roads so that other areas that might give way after the rehabilitation exercise could be taken care of before the total rehabilitation as promised by the Minister.

Early in February, Executive Director, Operations in FERMA, Francis Ikpenwa, was on routine inspection of the 93 kilometer Enugu-Otukpa road. He stated that the agency had introduced a new programme, termed “Preventive and Maintenance” for any road that was recovered to stop it from deterioration and attend to any identified failure immediately.

He said, “We have surveillance unit that ply the roads and makes sure that any identified pothole is attended to on time and in that way, it will reduce much stress. We watch our contractors very closely and we don’t wait until they finish. As they work, they are rated. So if a contractor is not doing very well, we will check him. There are many of them we have dropped while others have done very well. The contractors we have now are working very well.”

Managing Director of one of the companies working on the roads, Chief Festus Onuh gave kudos to the leadership at the Senate, especially the senate committee on works and FERMA for organising the rehabilitation, supervising the activities of the contractors and ensuring the contractors were paid for the jobs that they did.

He however suggested constant maintenance work on the roads, adding that serious retainership should be put in place for the maintenance of the road.

While praises are being showered on the rescue mission that had restored the Enugu-Port Harcourt highway, efforts should be made to hurry contractors, the CCC and RCC handling various areas of the Abakaliki-Onitsha highway to speed up efforts so as to complete the road before the rainy season peaks.

Till now, users of the highway are still being restricted to one lane of the road, the other lane having been closed completely awaiting rehabilitation.

One_Naira: I continue to wonder why people are trying to turn SE against GEJ and SS on this forum when it's obvious, he's done more for that region than the past administrations.

asha 80: the thing is funding these repairs,monitoring it and making sure that the quality is maintained.

One_Naira:

I still maintain he's done more for that region than all the past administrations put together.
How many presidents can you remember that actually started any project or even started any repair on any federal road in SE prior to him?

One_Naira:

I still maintain he's done more for that region than all the past administrations put together.
How many presidents can you remember that actually started any project or even started any repair on any federal road in SE prior to him?

Sincere 9gerian: I think the strategy is to fix the several bad portions on the Enugu-Ph road so as to make it motorable. Later this year, the minister of works promised that the road will be awarded for full re-construction. He said the road is in the 2013 budget. We are waiting!

The Enugu-Onitsha road is undergoing full re-construction. The road was awarded to I think CCC by the Yar Adua govt but construction was seriously slowed down by lack of funds. The current govt has split the road for quicker completion. Some section, the Anambra end, is being handled by Niger cat.

Also very bad portions of the road, yet to be reached by contractors re-constructing the road, were rehabilitated last December as part of Project Safe Passage so as to improve travel time on the road.

Meanwhile, the Enugu-Osha road is being partly funded by SURE-P. Consequently, its completion is guaranteed. I also learnt work stopped temporarily at the Enugu end of the road so as to RE-DESIGN that part of the road. The former design, being used by CCC, did not suit the vehicle load and soil texture, according to govt officials.

nwabobo: GEJ is working haters are tweeting.

nameo:
at least a promise made by the govt was kept. That is a good thing, esp for those peopel in the southeast whose roads are clearly improving.

Some of my friends say the SE roads are improving at a rate higher than at any time since the civil war!!

Sealeddeal: What is important to SE is reconstruction not rehabilitation.the Enugu-Onitsha to Enugu-PH are all an eye-sore and i'll not be happy if GEJ's administration fail to reconstruct those roads.

One_Naira: I continue to wonder why people are trying to turn SE against GEJ and SS on this forum when it's obvious, he's done more for that region than the past administrations.

One_Naira:

I still maintain he's done more for that region than all the past administrations put together.
How many presidents can you remember that actually started any project or even started any repair on any federal road in SE prior to him?

gen2briz:

Haters like abati abi

alexleo:

I ply Enugu-Ph road frequently and i can tell there is a great improvement. By this time last year it took me between five to six hours to get to Enugu from Ph but these days it takes me about two hours twenty minutes for the same journey. Yeah roads in the south east are receiving speedy attention now. I plied owerri to ph on thursday this week and i can tell you that serious dualization is going on now there. The porthacourt axis dualization has been 99 percent completed to imo boundary. The imo axis is about 50 percent done. I plied Enugu-Anambra last week and one side of it has been reconstructed to a great extent and the traveling hours have reduced very much. And of course OWerri to Onticha is smooth from begining to the end both sides. Akwaibom to Umuahia is receiving serious attention too. Enugu to Ebonyi is currently being dualized and work is seriously going on there. Enugu to Nsukka is very smooth now. No Portholes. GEJ is doing us well, yet we are watching other sectors too to see what he is up to. Light is improving too.

alexleo:

I ply Enugu-Ph road frequently and i can tell there is a great improvement. By this time last year it took me between five to six hours to get to Enugu from Ph but these days it takes me about two hours twenty minutes for the same journey. Yeah roads in the south east are receiving speedy attention now. I plied owerri to ph on thursday this week and i can tell you that serious dualization is going on now there. The porthacourt axis dualization has been 99 percent completed to imo boundary. The imo axis is about 50 percent done. I plied Enugu-Anambra last week and one side of it has been reconstructed to a great extent and the traveling hours have reduced very much. And of course OWerri to Onticha is smooth from begining to the end both sides. Akwaibom to Umuahia is receiving serious attention too. Enugu to Ebonyi is currently being dualized and work is seriously going on there. Enugu to Nsukka is very smooth now. No Portholes. GEJ is doing us well, yet we are watching other sectors too to see what he is up to. Light is improving too.

One_Naira: I continue to wonder why people are trying to turn SE against GEJ and SS on this forum when it's obvious, he's done more for that region than the past administrations.

toluxa1:

Bros, you be driver? Ajala Travel