GOVERNOR Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State has said the new 51Km Araromi Seaside/ Akodo-Lekki road flagged off by his government would help to open rooms for commercial and economic development of the state.
Apart from aiding the development of the state, the governor said the N19.3billion road when completed would create employment for the unemployed youths in the state and would open the whole of the southern senatorial districts
Akeredolu said “the attendant socio-economic benefits which the completion of this road will bring are considerable. There will be an unprecedented influx of visitors to our state through this route.
“Roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses. By linking producers to markets, workers to jobs, students to school, and the sick to hospitals, roads are vital to any development agenda.”
He assured the people that the project would not suffer the fate of others hurriedly conceived projects which are designed to achieve parochial political ends.
He said: “the knowledge of the indispensability of a link road between our coastal communities and Lagos, the commercial capital of the country, propel this administration to ensure that this construction does not only take off, but we are also reassuring our people that we shall be back to commission it in due course.”
Akeredolu appealed to the youth in the area to cooperate with contractors and security personnel that would be deployed to construct the road to ensure they finish the work within the next 36 months, assuring that the road would be completed before the end of his first term tenure.
He commended the partnership initiative between the Ondo State Oil Producing Area Development Commission (OSOPADEC) and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) over the project.
Speaking during the flag off ceremony in Araromi seaside, in Ilaje local government area of the state, the Chairman of OSOPADEC, Me. Gbenga Edema commended the state governor for making the project t a reality saying the road would facilitate the economic development of the coastal communities of the state.
Edema said the present administration in the state has laid an unequal foundation to development saying the road will open up the whole of the coastline, facilitate transportation in the riverine in the riverine area and improve the social and economic life of the area”
The Chairman of NDDC, Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, said the road help to reduce the travel time from Ondo state to Lagos to an hour and would facilitate the evacuation of agricultural products from Ondo to Lagos.
He reaffirmed the partnership is designed to bring development to the Niger Delta region, saying the project would be completed at record time against the notion that NDDC always abandons projects.
“I want to urge the people of Ondo State to discard the notion that NDDC does not complete projects. I want to assure you that all the project embarked upon by the commission will be completed” he said.
It will be recalled that the Memorandum of Understanding between the NDDC and OSOPADEC for the construction of the Araromi Seaside-Akodo-Lekki Road was signed on April 5, 2017.
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