Industrialization is one of Governor Udom Emmanuel’s 5 point agenda for Akwa Ibom state. The governor is aware that industrialisation will boost Akwa Ibom’s economy and also provide employment for many of its indigenes.

Road construction is critical to industrialization. Thus, the governor has awarded 110 road contracts across Akwa Ibom. These roads cover 1,700 kilometres and 47 bridges. Many of them have been completed and some of the projects are still on-going.

Considering the level of importance placed on road construction by the governor, it is apparent that the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene road has not been completed not because of Governor Udom’s negligence of the project but rather due to various reasons such as; mismanagement of funds from the previous administration, ridiculous demands for compensation for demolition and others.

The Uyo-Ikot Ekpene road was awarded by the government of Godswill Akpabio on the 19th of December, 2011 at over twenty eight billion to Julius Berger. Work started on the road by September 2013 and after several reviews, the amount added to over seventy one billion as at September 2014.

According to the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Works, Akparawa Ephraim Inyangeyen, the bulk of the money necessary to complete the construction of the road had been released to the previous administration. However, 50% of the road construction was not achieved before it was hurriedly commissioned by in April 2015. As a result of this, Governor Udom’s administration was left with the bulk of the work and little to no funds to complete the construction. Akparawa said “... this road was awarded at N71 billion and the duration was three years, it was supposed to have been completed in December 2014 and with two revisions, why was it not completed? Where did the money go to? These are very simple questions.”

In addition to the unavailability of funds, the commissioner explained that the previous administration had earlier put out fallacious information about their progress with the Uyo Ikot-Ekpene road construction thereby making the progress Udom’s administration had made seem insignificant.

He said, “the former governor said he took it to kilometre 18, I want to; for emphasis say that the structure that stood at Ikpe Annang is at kilometre 15.16 and that building never went down until February, 2017” This sreveals that it was impossible to have gotten to kilometre 18 while the building obstructing the construction at kilometre 15.16 was not removed until February 2017 by Governor Udom’s administration.

Furthermore, there were rumours that Governor Udom’s administration had only worked on 3 additional kilometres of the road construction since Godswill Akpabio left office. However, Akparawa lamented that the present administration had worked on at least 8 kilometres leaving only two kilometres that would be completed as soon as possible. He said “we have done the final asphalting of kilometre zero to fifteen and we are taking it from kilometre 15 to kilometre 23, that is 8 kilometres and the remaining 2 kilometres, we are paying compensation from Friday”.

The demand for compensation for demolition is another major cause for delay in respect to the completion of the Uyo Ikot-Ekpene road construction. The Commissioner for Works explained that the present government recently sourced for and paid about one hundred and forty million naira to the owner of a property that was preventing the progress of the Uyo Ikot-Ekpene road construction. “The structure that stood at Ikpe Annang is at kilometre 15.16 and that building never went down until February, 2017 that this government sourced money, one hundred and forty one million naira and paid the owner of that property to take down that property.”

Also, Governor Udom’s administration has focused on constructing outfall drains on the Uyo Ikot-Ekpene road that the previous administration did not put into consideration. Akparawa said “…the outfall drains that were supposed to have been done on that road. It is this administration of Udom that is coming up to consider constructing drains because all the communities on that road are having flood situations”