Jubilation as South East roads get Senate’s attention

Jubilation as South East roads get Senate’s attention

By Our Reporter  on November 4, 2015
From Emmanuel Uzor, Abakaliki
There was wild jubilation in major cities across the South East geopolitical zone as the deplorable condition of federal roads across the zone received attention from the Senate.
 The recent intervention by the Federal Government was as a result of a motion by Senator Uche Ekwunife, representing Anambra Central Senatorial district where she decried the bad condition of federal roads in the zone, especially the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway.
 Senator Ekwunife, who led the Ad Hoc Committee on Works, responded quickly to the plight of Anambra and South East states, which are on national emergency list of states with high priority threats of ecological menace.
 This visit was a follow up to Ekwunife’s motion on the floor of the Senate on the urgent need to rehabilitate the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, which is in a deplorable condition and the numerous erosion sites threatening economic activities in the state.
“Through the resilience and hard work of Senator Ekwunife, who is also a member of the Senate Ad Hoc  Committee on Works, the Senate mandated the committee, led by Senator Barnabas Gemade to visit the affected states in the South-East and South-South zones of Nigeria.”
The states visited included, Anambra, Abia, Imo, Akwa Ibom, and Edo states.
 The mandate of the Senate Ad Hoc Committee  was to visit communities with prevalent gully erosions, landslides and washouts and collate extremely dilapidated federal roads for attention of the government.
Senator Ekwunife, however, frowned on the level and magnitude of the devastation, which she termed as frightening, adding: “The approach is no longer an envelope system of budgeting that cannot take care of huge devastation, we have witnessed today as it will get to a stage where the Federal Government will not only provide palliative measures but employ holistic approach to arrest the erosion menace in Anambra State.”