Reassess all federal roads over 20 years, Okowa tasks FG

Delta state Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, has called on the federal government to reassess all roads constructed over 20 years ago with a view to reconstructing failed ones.

He made the call on Sunday while inspecting ongoing work on failed portions of the Warri-Benin highway being reconstructed by the state government.

The governor said that many federal roads across the country were aging and advised the federal government to reassess such roads and intervene promptly.

He warned that if the federal government fails to act fast, then the nations will be overwhelmed by the magnitude of failed federal roads.

Gov. Okowa, who was conducted round the failed areas of the road by the Commissioner for Works, Mr. James Auguye, told newsmen that his administration is intervening on deplorable federal roads in the state because they were critical infrastructure for the socio-economic development.

He said that “we are very much aware that this is a federal road. We complained to the federal government, but they said it was not in the budget and gave us the approval to intervene.

“This road and others are very important, especially to our people who are road users. It was not passable before now, but you can see that within a period of one week, the contractor handling the project has opened one side of the road.”

Gov. Okowa explained that he would approach the state House of Assembly for the funds through a supplementary budget as the roads intervention is an emergency

Aside the Benin-Warri highway, the state government is also rehabilitating failed sections of the Benin-Onitsha Road, especially at the Asaba end of River Niger Bridge and the Agbor-Abraka-Eku Road.

The state Commissioner for Information, Mr. Charles Aniagwu, had told the media on Tuesday that the intervention on the roads would cost the state government over N1billion.