Failed federal roads: Delta rejects calls to stop trucks from plying internal roads

…Says nation’s economy will be negatively impacted

Monday Onyeme, Delta State acting governor has rejected calls from some residents of the state demanding that he limit heavy duty vehicles and trucks from plying the state internal roads.

BusinessDay reports that since this year’s rainy season, many part of the Benin-Asaba-Onitsha Expressway have been rendered impassable following the inability of the federal contractor to properly reconstruct the road as awarded.

Months ago, following massive appeal, the contractor went back to site and carried out some palliative measures on the federal road, especially the Bonsaac/Ezenei axis but as soon as there were drops of rain, the situation worsened, causing nightmare to entire road-users

The worst hit seemed to be those using heavy duty vehicles and trucks who have to stick to the federal road which is the Trunk A road while lighter vehicles take alternative routes which is the state’s internal roads.

Now, situation was such that trucks that managed to navigate through the bad spots end up crashing down with their loads, hence, other heavy-duty vehicles no longer have access to the highway but to divert to internal roads in Asaba metropolis.

Speaking during an on-the-spot inspection of the failed portions of the expressway and the internal roads in Asaba metropolis, Onyeme said, “We will continue to do our best as a state, the federal government has already awarded the contract for the rehabilitation of the road.

“On our part, there is a limit to what we can do to restrict commuters. They are Nigerians and some of them are Deltans. So, if this expressway is bad, you cannot stop trucks from passing through alternative roads which are our internal roads.

“If you do that, of course, you know the economic consequences on the entire nation. So, we will keep doing our best and keep calling on the federal government to do what they are expected to do while we also do what is expected of us as a government,” said Onyeme.

He expressed hope that the nightmare faced by motorist plying the Benin-Onitsha Expressway would soon be over with the commencement of remedial works on the failed portion of the road at Asaba-Onitsha axis.

He disclosed that the contractor handling remedial works on the road has assured him of the completion of side of the dual carriage way to ease movement of vehicles pending the end of the rainy season.

Onyeme revealed that the state government has planned to work on the failed portions of Asaba internal roads that were used as diversion by motorists.

“As you can see, we have gone round the entire length of Nnebisi Road and Dennis Osadebay Way and we have inspected the failed portions of the road, including the areas that are failing on the Ibusa/Asaba road towards the Koka Interchange.

“Fortunately, some measures to remedy the bad spot where a truck fell on two smaller vehicles is ongoing, we have also, taken note of the other failed spots and our technical team will do their paper work and we will return to those sites as fast as possible to ensure that those bad spots are fixed.

“These roads have been there for us over the years, and I think the contractors who executed the projects did a good job. The problem as I learnt from my technical team is that these our internal road network were not meant for certain class of vehicles, but because we have failures on the federal road which were not attended to on time, commuter resorted to using our internal roads and the pressure on these our internal road has caused some portions to fail.

“However, we are on top of the situation, and we are going to make sure that we repair all the failed portions of the roads within Asaba.

“We also thank God that today we passed through the major failed portions of the expressway, and we saw that the Federal Government has listened to the cry of the people and has mobilised workers to work on the road.

“We asked the constructor some questions and he promised that within a week or there about, the first lane will be remedied and they will move to the other lane, and after the rainy season they will come back to site to do proper work.

So, we thank the Federal Government responding because, fixing the federal road will reduce pressure on our internal roads, so, I am happy that within the next few days, the problem associated with the failed portions of the road will become a thing of the past,” said Onyeme.