Coalition tasks Tinubu on repair of federal highways in Southern Nigeria

A group with the mission to achieve development and growth for the good people of the Southern region of the country, the Coalition of Southern Groups (CSG), has urged President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to give priority to federal roads that transverse the 17 southern states in the country.

National Convener of the CSG, Prof Vitalis Ajumbe made the appeal on Thursday while addressing newsmen in Abuja at the inaugural media briefing of the Coalition.

Professor Ajumbe declared that the deplorable conditions of the federal highways has created encumbrance to economic activities.

The Coalition chairman who noted that states in the region have the natural endowments that generate revenue for the country called on the relevant federal agencies to ensure repair of infrastructures in the states in the Southern part of the country.

He said: “The Coalition of Southern Groups (CSG) calls on the federal government to as a matter of urgent national importance and concerns, declare a state of emergency on all the federal roads in the Southern part of Nigeria.

“That the sordid state of the roads are yearning for attention and long overdue for total repairs and overhaul, it is on record that the Southern part of the country produces the liquid gold that sustains the economic well-being of Nigeria and these roads have been left unrepaired for decades.

“Therefore, the CSG frowns at the total neglect of majority of roads in the entire Southern region of Nigeria and charges the relevant ministries and agencies to wake up to the clarion calls of fixing all the road networks across the southern region. This emergency meeting of stakeholders of CSG is essentially to deal with some of the critical issues that affect the good people of the southern region. Today, it is difficult for our farmers to ferry their farm produce to available marketplaces due to the deplorable conditions of all the roads South Nigeria.

“Good and usable roads are the life wire of any viable economy and commerce in an ideal society. To this effect, the southern region of Nigeria is totally at a disadvantaged position due to the nature of the bad roads that crisscross the entire Southern region, there is avalanche of untold hardship on the local people, who are traditional peasant farmers and petty market traders to eke a living. ”

The group which recalled recent budgetary provisions for the Lagos- Calabar Coastal highway and the Lagos– Sokoto road, demanded that same attention should be accorded existing but dilapidated roads.

“We aren’t saying the Lagos-Calabar and Lagos- Sokoto aren’t needed, but they must fix existing roads.”

Stretching further the agenda of the group, Professor Ajumbe said the Forum ” as the name implies is to aggressively pursue the actualization of credible leadership recruitment process for quality representations of the people through national discourse, engagement, social enlightenment, public awareness campaign initiative, seminars, summit, social and political participation, sensitization programs, dialogue and workshops. It is a known facts that, the lack of participatory leadership ethos has been identified as the major setbacks of development and growth in Southern Nigeria, where most leaders are aloof to their constitutional responsibilities to the people immediately after they are elected or appointed into various offices.

“The Coalition of Southern Groups (CSG) is to consciously advance a good leadership re-engineering ordinance to remedy the process by taking a holistic overview of all the identifiable leadership deficiencies in the Southern part of Nigeria. The Coalition is not also oblivious of the need to take pragmatic steps towards addressing the question of followership insensitivity in this context of achieving the emergence of quality leadership progression.”

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