How nupeng forced nddc to repair on East-West Road

It took the threat of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), about two weeks ago, for the Federal Government to rise up to respond to the menace and embarrassment that some sections of the East-West Road had become at that time.

By this time the Eleme Junction – Onne Junction axis of the road has become a nightmare dealing harrowing experiences which included avoidable deaths through road accidents to motorists and passengers on that route.

Then passengers spent between five to six hours to move from one end to the other of that axis of the road that is not more than five kilometres with thousands usually forced to trek long distances to cross the very bad spots and continue their journeys.

And to think that that axis of the road leads to the economic hub of the oil and gas industry made the situation more pitiable as thousand of staff of companies like Ndorama-Eleme Petrochemical, Port Harcourt Refinery, Intels, Nigeria Ports Authority and many others had to experience untold hardship transversing to and from work on that road.

Three major spots were most challenging with the Akpajo aArea by the approach to Ndorama being the worst affected with motorists already avoiding passing through that area. Besides the Akpajo area are the Eleme Junction and the Odani areas.

These spots were so bad that oil tankers and container laden vehicles were taking turns to fall and many times with loss of lives and several million of naira worth of goods.

This caused NUPENG which is predominantly populated by tanker drivers, also mostly at the receiving end of the state of the road to declare an industrial action until the road as well as a section of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Express way around Oyigbo, also in Rivers State were fixed, thus the intervention of the Niger Delta development Commission (NDDC).

Two weeks down the line, a temporary reprieve has come the way of motorists and residents of that area as the road has become more passable since the NUPENG threat.

A  visit to the road by the Nigerian Tribune Friday showed that work was fast moving on to ensure the road was made easily passables the remainder of this rainy season.

Currently, all the craters and deep gullies on the unmotorable portions have been filled to stone base level and vehicles can easily pass through but in order not to disrupt work, motorists are forced to share single lane at some sections of the road.

That, as usual on Port Harcourt roads, resulted to slow movement and the attendant chaotic traffic even though a detachment of Road Safety officers were on hand to control the traffic.

In an interview with our correspondent, Chijioke Amu-Nnadi, Personal Assistant to the NDDC Managing Director, Nsima Ekere, said that the commission has no budget for such intervention jobs.

He explained; “There is no budget that says this is how much we are going to spend on the budget until after the intervention. We don’t mobilize, we don’t pay, we just get contractors who have the

competence the equipment and materials. Go and do this job, work with our engineers to make sure that you are not scamming us. When you finish we pay you”.

Speaking on when the job is expected to be delivered, he said the contractor had given a three weeks period to complete the job. “When we visited them on Monday they told us in three weeks they would complete the job, soon we will return to inspect the extent of work done”, Amu-Nnadi stated.

He said the scope of the job was not determined by length or distance but rather was just to fix the bad portions on the road. He said; “No length is determined, what we are doing is just the un-motorable spots”.

Officials of the Niger Delta Ministry which has been handling the reconstruction of the entire East West Road could not be reached before filing this report as there office address or contact of any of

them available. Even a visit to the Federal Secretariat did not yield any result as the office was not located there all enquiries about the office address in Rivers State, incidentally the capital of the Niger Delta failed to produce result as no one contacted yet knows their address.