By Angela Atabo
The Minster of State for Works, Mr Bello Goronyo, has expressed concern over acts of sabotage along the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Highway project.
Goronyo, while inspecting the road project, urged community leaders to caution the residents against such obnoxious acts.
According to him, the contractor is fully on site, working tirelessly and the road is tuning out beautifully.
“Maintenance means a lot. Prevention of road abuses is part of road maintenance.
“Particularly we have noticed even along this corridor that people go overnight and begin to break some of the road infrastructure and remove iron rods.
“We have noticed that even on completed projects along Jaji Bridge in Kaduna, where some hoodlums (Baban Bola, Iron condemn) went through the bridge to remove iron rods.
“On this one, you can notice some people are drying their grains, they are dumping refuse, they are also breaking our roads to pass some cables.”
Goronyo condemned the act and called on the community leaders along that route to caution their people to try as much as possible to keep the road in good condition.
This, he said, was necessary because the Federal Government had made huge investments in the infrastructure and has made commitment to completing the project.
“The importance of a well-maintained road cannot be over-emphasised because it provides safer travels, reduces travel time, prevents accidents and even security itself.
“You can see that from the day when we started, there is a high reduction in cases of insecurity along this road.
“So, we want to implore the commuters, the community leaders to please support us, support the administration of Bola Tinubu so that our roads will be better, well-maintained so that we can continue to benefit and then use them for a longer period of time,” he said.
Goronyo expressed satisfaction at the rate of work being done.
Also speaking, the Director, Federal Highways, Federal Ministry of Works, Clement Ogbuagu, said the inspection team had seen all the stages of work on the project and it was encouraging.
According to Ogbuagu, the contractor is not doing badly adding that they have progressed very well.
He said, “We have been on them to meet up with the timetable that we gave them that we agreed on.
“We are telling Nigerians and the world at large that we are not sleeping, we are not resting on our oars on this road because this road is so important to Mr President.
“We in the Federal Ministry of Works know the importance of this road and we are employing every necessary effort to make sure that this road is delivered and delivered on time.”
Ogbuagu explained that the road was one of the fastest progressing road construction works in Nigeria presently and the quality of work was good and very satisfactory. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Bashir Rabe Mani
