Residents of Okporo and Umuchiolu communities in Aluu, Rivers State have decried the deplorable State of the roads calling on government and the Niger Delta Development Commission NDDC to intervene.
One of the residents, Mr. Walter Enefa told our correspondent that the contractor had mobilized to site during the last administration when the NDDC announced the probing of contractors, but abandoned the project after the probe.
According to Mr Enefa, about two years ago, another set of people came and mounted a board written, ‘NDDC Emergency Project,’ but also left with the board after few days without any work done.
Enefa said, “I think that was during the Buhari administration. There was a time that there were doing programme for NDDC. That was when they hurriedly came and started fixing up the gutters and all that. So they were supposed to continue with the road and all that, but when the probing stopped, they also stopped.
Also, i think the last two years or last year, there was a time they brought the sign board, they also pinned it here and snap it and then they went. Since then till now, we haven’t seen anything about it. The roads have been so bad, no way to pass and people are getting injured while trying to work on the gutter. The sign board,. I think it was stated, NDDC emergency project for the repair of the Okporo road. And so since then, we haven’t seen them.”
Two women in the area, Mrs. Joy Amuzie and Mrs. Peace Chidubem, lamented that people usually fall on the roads and in the drainages whenever it rains.
If rain fall like this, everybody is falling inside the water. Even me, I don fall inside the water one day, because my shop is down down there. When I will be coming back, I will fall. My children will fall. We want the government to come and help us. Because the road is bad, very, very bad. Every day I will be thinking about this road. I’m not happy at all. If rain fall like this, you cannot move anywhere,” Amuzie said.
“We are begging the government to come and help us, to see us through this road. There is no way for a motor, or a cyclist, or a keke” Chidubem said.
In celebration of its 25years, the NDDC had reiterated its commitment to finishing abandoned essential projects that will benefit the region; and residents of Okporo and Umuchiolu in Aluu are seeking the commission’s intervention on their community roads.
Dr. Samuel Ogbuku, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Commission, had made the assurance in Asaba during a global press briefing commemorating the twenty-five year anniversary of the Niger Delta Development Commission.
” It was appropriate for the commission to revisit those neglected projects and enhance what had been previously initiated, to avoid wasting the funding designated for the region’s development,” Ogbuku stated.
The Aluu communities are also appealing that the light-up project of the NDDC be extended across the whole community especially the areas that are yet to be connected to the PHEDC electricity.
