Remedial Work Begins On Failed Asaba-Onitsha Road

The Acting Governor of Delta State, Monday Onyeme, on Thursday, said remedial works have begun on the failed portion of the Asaba-Onitsha axis of the Benin-Onitsha expressway, expressing hope that the nightmare of motorists plying the road would soon be over.

Onyeme after assessing the failed road and the internal roads in the Asaba metropolis that have been causing gridlock owing to the failed portion of the federal roads, said the contractor handling remedial works on the road has assured of the completion of the side of the dual carriageway to ease traffic pending the end of the rainy season.

The acting governor, accompanied on a tour of the roads by the Commissioner for Works (Urban Roads), Reuben Izeze, the Commissioner for Information, Ifeanyi Osuoza, the Director-General, Asaba Capital Territory Development Agency, Patrick Ukah, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Festus Ahon and other top government functionaries, disclosed that plans are underway to work on the internal roads in Asaba that have failed as a result of the diversion of traffic from the failed federal roads.

He said “As you can see, we have gone around 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 are ongoing, and we have also taken note of the other failed spots, our technical team will do the paperwork, and we will return to that site 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 our internal road network was not meant for a 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 as we have witnessed, but 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 the first lane would be remedied within a week, and they would move to the other lane after the rainy season, and then, come back to the site to do proper work.

“So, we thank the Federal Government for 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.

On calls by some section of people to restrict the movement of heavy-duty vehicles and trucks from plying internal roads, the acting governor 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.”