Residents protest as erosion ravages Akwa Ibom communities

Residents of Abak Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom State have embarked on a peaceful demonstration,calling on the Federal Government to come to their aid in fixing the failed portion of the  Hospital road, Abak, noting with dismay that the collapsed road had crippled business and economic activities in the area for over a year.

Speaking in an interview in Abak, during the peaceful protest and tour of the affected areas, a former Minority Leader in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, Dr Dominic Obott, decried the deplorable state of the road and appealed to the Federal Government to mandate either the Federal Ministry of Works, FERMA or the NDDC, to as a matter of urgency, intervene and rehabilitate the road “to ameliorate the hardships and sufferings faced by the people”.

Also speaking, a community leader, Mr Koko Abia, regretted that the road had been abandoned and rendered deplorable and not motorable thereby making it impossible for the community to access the two general hospitals in the area and also noted with dismay that “school children have been unable to go to school as the road is the only accessible way to schools within the community”.

He called on the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government to intervene and restore the hope and confidence of the Abak people in government, regretting that “allowing the situation to remain as it is, will be to the detriment of the ordinary Abak people whose means of livelihood revolves around their day-to-day usage of the road”.

On her part, a woman leader, Mrs Elizabeth Akpan, regretted that the neglect and deplorable state of the road had affected the ability of rural women to access the market to sell their farm produce, lamenting that the bad road had negatively affected the growth of small and medium businesses in the area. She called on the federal government to quickly intervene by repairing the road so that normal economic activities might return to the area.

“The road has been like this for over a year now. A contractor came to work on the site but said no contract paper was signed neither was any money released for the project. The entire area is cut off. Even the adjourning Obot Street where Esteem Schools is located is not motorable and these are urgent issues the government should address and stop playing politics with”, Aniekan Joshua, a youth leader in the area declared.