AS his eight years of governance gradually comes to an end, Gombe State Governor, Ibrahim Hassan Dankwambo has flagged-off the construction of twelve township roads in Gombe metropolis with a promise to do more before he leaves office in May 2019.
Hassan Dankwambo had during a welcome political rally for him and his party’s (PDP) governorship candidate, Usman Bayero Nafada last week Thursday, promised to execute no fewer than fifty roads in different parts of the State before the expiration of his tenure in 2019.
The Governor said that the roads projects are to further assure the people of the State that with the PDP Government in power after next year’s general elections, it will be more and more of people-oriented projects.
While giving the breakdown of the construction of the road, the State Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Alhaji Hassan Mohammed Santana explained that the 12 roads have a total span of seven kilometers with a completion period of six months.
The Commissioner also explained further that the width of each road is about eight meters with drainages of 0.8 by 0.8 meters adding that the current set of roads are for the Gombe North State constituency.
According to him, “As you can remember, we were at Jekadafari today to flag-off the road construction for Gombe North. If you can remember earlier, the road construction for Gombe South was done and completed and His Excellency felt it necessary to come to give the Gombe North Area and Gombe North constitutes about 12 roads”.
He added that “As you can see, Jekadafari North is a densely populated area. It is a densely populated area where you have so many mishaps along that area. That is in cases of crime, in cases of diseases or epidemics and what have you. So, by opening the road, people will at least be exposed to good accessibility of roads and a healthier environment”.
“The Phase six of the road construction comprises of about 23 kilometers that we are going to start as soon as possible. Aside that, we are going to enter Malam Inna, Kagarawal, which is going to be an entirely different project itself. But very soon the contractor will commence work. Likewise in Nassarawo Area, where we have the groundnut clusters, and the project would be awarded and it would start as soon as possible”, he explained further.
For compensation to those that will be affected, the Commissioner said, “We have already done the compensation. If you can remember Jekadafari North, people have been compensated; some have even left the area. We compensated people within Jekadafari North to the tune of about N700 Million. Most of them have relocated, but there are some who are a little bit recalcitrant, you know, they never want to move until they see work commences. And I feel in the next one week or so, everywhere would have been cleared, because we are going to start demolition, as soon as possible”.
and then