Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa, Delta State Governor on Thursday advised the Federal Government to commence a total reconstruction of the Benin-Warri highway, laying emphasis on the bad state of the road.
However, he also urged the National Assembly to re-visit the Electoral Act amendment to ensure free, fair, and authentic elections at all levels.
While talking at an interdenominational thanksgiving service at Government House chapel situated in Asaba, to mark Nigeria 60th years of nationhood, Okowa enjoined the Federal Government to give urgent audience to the Agbor-Eku road within the state, which as gathered from him, was also in a deplorable situation.
Dr. Okowa lamented over the poor state of the two roads stating that they had accounted for the loss of many lives and goods in accidents and robberies which further often resulted in the loss of man-hours through endless traffic.
Promising that as soon as the rainy season was over, work on Warri storm drainage project and concrete tarring of some roads in the area would begin, the Governor held that his administration was committed to giving equal attention to every part of the state.
Dr. Okowa said:
“I will use this opportunity to appeal to the Federal Government to attend to the Benin-Warri road; it requires total reconstruction. The interventions we have been doing over the years definitely cannot bring any solutions at the moment.
“We will see what we can do as soon as the rains are over, but that road requires total reconstruction. It is beyond our limit as a state and we hope that the Federal Government will look into that.
“Between Agbor and Eku has been very bad too, and almost impassable. We intervened in 2019, a palliative intervention; in 2018 we also intervened on that road. We intend to intervene soon after the rains.
“We have been talking with the Federal Ministry of Works but that road (Agbor/Eku) is already under contract but that contract is slowed down because of the paucity of funds at the federal level to meet with the needs of the construction.
“So, what we have to do is just to do a palliative touch that can get the road motorable, hoping that funds will be available for the government at the federal level to drive the contract because both roads (Benin/Warri and Agbor/Eku) are federal roads.
“We will continue to do our best. I believe that the work on Ughelli-Kwale-Asaba dualisation is going on as fast as it is humanly possible. We will continue to do our best to fund that road”.
He made it known that with 21 years of unbroken democracy, the votes of the Nigerian citizens need to count in every election as it did in the September 19, 2020, gubernatorial election in Edo, adding that it would enable the people to believe that power to occupy elective positions was for sure in the palms of the electorate.
Furthermore, he reminded the citizens of Nigeria of the need to use the independence celebration to think on the journey so far and come out with workable plans on how to restructure the nation such that the interest of the nation would take centre stage above every other considerations.
H.E, Dr. Okowa expressed worry that the population explosion in the country was at variance with the economic growth of the country, hence the need to comprehensively develope ways to meaningfully engage youths rather than allow them to become a security risk.
More so, he told his political appointees in the state to extend the hands of fellowship to the people at the grassroots, as a way of offering them a sense of belonging in the scheme of things.
Earlier in a sermon titled “Abuse Of Liberty”, the Chairman, Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN in Delta, Senior Apostle Sylvanus Okorote, said that every freedom came with responsibility and called on Nigerians to work as a team in moving the country forward.
Okorote, who is also the Special Adviser to the Governor on Religious Matters, said that Nigeria needed spiritual liberty to win her challenges.
He further appealed to President Mohammadu Buhari not to allow anyone to lure him into borrowing to address infrastructural challenges in the country.
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