The residents of Eleme Local Government Area in Rivers State have expressed dissatisfaction over the poor condition of the federal road following the deteriorating and

deplorable condition of the Eleme-Ogoni stretch of the East-West Road.

In Port Harcourt, the Chairman of the Eleme Local Government Area, Chief Obarilomate Ollor, revealed that the palliative work on the appalling road could not be completed as planned because the money that the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari released to fix the section of the road was insufficient to deliver it.

After the residents of Eleme shut down the aforementioned part of the road for two weeks, Ollor claimed that the then-Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, intervened to get the Federal Government to fix the road.

He said: “The East-West road has been an issue during my administration. When I was sworn in, the bridge at Eleto caved in, we protested that they should work on the road.

“The protest lasted for two weeks. The then Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Akpabio, assured that the road would be done. But the money that was given out was not enough to do that road.

“They released about N2.5 billion. They did that to pacify the people. They did soil text, moved the polls like two metres away. They made design and paid some damages and the money got finished.”

Ollor noted that after that period, he personally traveled to Abuja to assess the way forward for the road, and that the Federal Government had asked the former Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, to release funding for the project through its tax. However, nothing significant has occurred on the road to date.

He said: “During the review, there was need for an upward review of the money involved. I personally met with the Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola. It was presented and got approval from the Federal Executive Council in the last administration.

“The instruction from Buhari was that the NNPC should fund through their tax. We don’t understand what is holding the NNPC to start the project, because what is holding the road is the refusal of the NNPC to release fund to the construction company, RCC.”