The Chairman of a volunteer group, Fix Jalingo-Numan Road, in Taraba State, Abdulazeez Mafindi, has called on the Federal Government to compel the contractor handling the reconstruction of the Jalingo-Numan Federal Highway to hasten work.
Mafindi told North East Trust that the call was necessary in view of the failure of the contractor to meet deadline.
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He explained that contract for the rehabilitation of the road was awarded in July, 2017, with a completion period of 20 months, adding that the total length of the road was 100 kilometres, but that the contractor only executed 3.33 per cent of the work.
Mafindi said a journey from Jalingo to Numan was supposed to be one hour, but that because of the deplorable condition of the road, motorists now spent over four hours.
He explained that the bad state of the road had slowed down economic activities of communities located along the road as only few vehicles plied it.
The chairman said armed bandits and militia took advantage of the bad road to rob, attack and kidnap passengers along the road, a situation that had made the road a death trap.
He, therefore, called on President Buhari to set up a committee to investigate the cause of delay in the execution of the Numan-Jalingo Road project.
He further said the road was of serious economic value to the people of the North East as it was the only road that linked them to the South.
He also raised alarm over erosion along the Wukari-Jalingo Federal Road, which according to him, has affected all the bridges and culverts on the road, and also called for urgent attention to save the bridges from collapsing.
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