CLO Writes FG Over Calabar-Itu Highway
A non-governmental organisation (NGO), the Civil Liberty Organisation (CLO), Akwa Ibom State Chapter, has sent a Save Our Soul (SOS) to the Federal Government, seeking its intervention in the delapidated state of the Calabar-Itu Highway.
Speaking with newsmen in Uyo, the chairman of CLO, Mr Franklin Isong, decried the danger and untold hardship being faced by commuters, especially female traders who transport food stuff between Cross River and Akwa Ibom states and their environs, due to the bad state of the road for more than 20 years.
According to him, the traders are often attacked and the female traders are sometimes molested and raped by hoodlums whenever trucks conveying their goods break down at odd times, due to the condition of the road.
Wondering why the rehabilitation of the road was not captured in the 2021 budget, Isong appealed to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration to intervene in the road.
He urged Federal Government to include the dilapidated Calabar-Itu-Ikot Ekpene Road project in the list of federal roads earmarked for concessioning by the Federal Ministry of Works.
“We don’t know why the Calabar-Itu Road has not captured in the concessioning plan of the Federal Government. But we are saying that whatever it takes, it should be placed on the topmost priority of the Federal Government.
“This is necessary as the National Assembly has been unable to make adequate budgetary provisions for the highway since the contract for its reconstruction was awarded,” he stressed.
Isong regretted that the road, which is serious death trap, has become a subject of politics and wonder why federal roads in Akwa Ibom State would be made to suffer such level of dilapidation and neglect, even as the state has continued to contribute the highest amount to the Federation Account.
The CLO chairman, who lauded the government initiative to concession some federal highways to private concerns to boost their maintenance, said urgent reconstruction of the highway would save commuters from hardship and boost the socio-economic fortunes of Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
He also called on officials and federal appointees from the two states, especially the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Chief Godswill Akpabio, to impress it upon the Federal Government to, as a matter of urgency, reconstruct the road rather than playing politics with.
“We are calling on the Federal Government and our brothers who are in government to persuade the Federal Government to see reasons not to allow this project enter into politics,” Isong said.
The SOS by the CLO is coming some few days after the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Ita Enang, had, in an interaction with newsmen in Uyo, revealed that inadequate budgetary provisions was stalling the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the road.
He also blamed officials and members of the National Assembly from Cross River and Akwa Ibom states for not doing enough to attract the attention of the Federal Government to the bad shape of the road, saying he was left alone to lobby for fund to be appropriated for the highway.
