A’Ibom villagers lament abandoned NDDC projects

By Chioma Onuegbu

UDU — RESIDENTS of Udu, Uda and other communities in Mbo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, have bemoaned the desertion of road projects in the area by contractors of the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, and urged the interventionist agency to mobilize contractors to return to site.

One of the youth leaders from Udu village, Anietie Esu, said his people were worried over the failure of NDDC contractor to complete the dilapidated Uda village road project, awarded but neglected since 2015.

Esu lamented, “The one-kilometre Uda village road is the major entrance into many communities in Mbo. In fact, the road links our people to other local government areas like Urue Offong/Oruko local government area, but because of the bad state, our people do not have access to its neigbouring communities again.

Fishing occupation crippled: “Most worrisome is the fact that it affects the major business which our people are noted for, that is fishing business. As fishermen, they go to fish, people come from neighbouring local government areas and even states to buy, but the business has gone down because of lack of access road. That is why we are appealing to the NDDC management to come to our aid. They should mobilize them to complete the jobs they abandoned in line with the commission’s recent directive.

“Some of us who live in the state capital hardly come home these days because the only road now available is the bush path. It is that bad and as a youth of the area, I am particularly not happy over the state of that road,” he asserted.

Leader backs plan to prosecute erring contractors: Also President-General of Uda Community Youth Development Organization (UCYDO), Mr. Victor Inwang Obong, who described the decision of NDDC to prosecute contractors that failed to comply with the directive to return to site, as a welcome development, appealed to the Managing Director of the NDDC, Obong Nsima Ekere, to persuade Silver Bells Limited, the contractor handling the abandoned road to return to site.

He said that the completion of the Uda village road would alleviate the suffering of the residents and also encourage the fishing business in their area to grow, even as he pleaded for the road’s length to be extended to four kilometres.

SOS: “And we have observed that with the current specification the contractor is using, the road will not cover the villages in the area, so we are appealing that the length of the road should be extended from one-kilometre to four-kilometres.

Even with the gutter that the contractor started, you will discover that if the road is not expanded, it will not be able to accommodate two vehicles at the same time when completed.

 

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