Once more the beleaguered East-West Road which serves as the arterial highway that traverses the country’s oil and gas base in the South South geopolitical zone, is billed to witness another round of turbulence come Friday March 11, 2022. A coalition of activists drawn from the four local government areas of Eleme, Gokana, Khana and Tai, which fall within the precincts of the road, has placed the Federal Government on notice in respect of their resolve to embark on another protest in 48 days from their notice, to press home their grievances over not just the interminable delay in the completion of the 338 kilometer inter-state road, but the flood of unfulfilled promises in that regard, by designated officials of the federal government. The combined effect of these tendencies have spawned the impression that the present administration of President Muhamadu Buhari may have downgraded the project and thereby consigned it for completion by his successor. Such a dispensation is as good as waiting for Godot for the completion of the road.
This mindset exists courtesy of several factors associated with the delay in the project’s completion. In one vein are the conflicting values of the sums for completing the project. In one instance, the sum of N500 billion has been considered as the price for repairing the highway. While the price may seem high, it does not outweigh the sheer humongous stock of dividends which are accruable from the road as it is purely an economic infrastructure and therefore an asset which the country needs.
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Meanwhile another significant factor is the prevarication by the government as illustrated in its several promises like the one in July last year to complete the road, but on which it has reneged. It is easily recalled that last year July the government through the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs Godswill Akpabio, promised immediate repairs of the most dilapidated portion of the road being the Eleme-Onne axis in order to douse the tension that was occasioned by a two-week long barricade of the road by protesting youth from its vicinity. Incidentally that portion remains the most used segment of the road and thereby suffers the most intense wear and tear. Ever since, the Federal government – especially the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), had virtually gone to sleep on whatever plans the country had for the project.
The new ultimatum and planned protest may be seen asmany feel coming on the premise of a loss of faith by the host communities of the road, in the Federal Government over its abdication of its responsibility and the failure to honour its word. This is just as responsibility for this sad development rests on Godswill Akpabio who had been delivering one promise or the other on the road, and should be held responsible for any untoward outcome from the planned turbulence, simply for the manner with which he had been running the affairs of the ministry and the NDDC.
From both political and strategic economic considerations, the pallid circumstances of the East West Road remain anachronistic, in the context of its promise to the Nigerian economy. Even from a most casual appraisal, this road qualifies as perhaps one of the most strategically endowed infrastructure in the country, given its utility. Basically, it links the core oil and gas producing states from the refinery town of Warri in Delta State, oil rich Bayelsa, the country’s only petrochemical plant in Alesa Eleme Rivers State along with the two plants of the Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited, the Onne Ocean Terminal with the hundreds of companies and government institutions also in Rivers State, and moves on to Akwa Ibom State.
Under a more discretional state of affairs such a road should be enjoying the status of an all-weather facility with guaranteed all year round serviceability. But is not so in Nigerian and definitely not under the official oversight of the NDDC as presently run without a governance structure recognized by law. It is easily recalled that the NDDC had since 2017 lost its board to a string of official intrigues and ever since had been run with all the shots called by Godswill Akapbio. Not a few Nigerians claim that what had been coming out of the agency since his tenure as the Minister over sighting it, has been mostly developments that bear his direct imprints instead of altruistic and impersonal features.
Hitherto a highly successful governor of Akwa Ibom State with landmark achievements in various areas of that state’s public space, Akpabio had throughout his two terms in office earned credible public acclaim as the governor with the ‘uncommon touch’. From there he had moved to the Senate where he also recorded a sterling run as the Senate Minority Leader. It was against such a backdrop of high profile performance that his appointment as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was hailed by many as he would expectedly bring to bear on his official assignments at a higher level the same ‘uncommon touch’ that endeared him to his admirers as governor of Akwa Ibom State.
Well, without much equivocation, here lies the East West Road project nestling in the lap of Akpabio for him to deploy his uncommon touch, and convert to serve as one of the testimonials of tenure of President Muhamadu Buhari, and another father on his own cap.
