State of the East-West Road and impact on South South economy
East-West Road is the stretch of over 188km road tranversing about 1,000 communities cutting across the Niger Delta states of Nigeria.
The occupants are basically farmers and fishermen, who must evacuate their products via the road, thereby making the East-West Road crucial and economically important to them and by extension Nigeria.
The contract of this all-important infrastructure was first awarded in 2006 by the then President Olusegun Obasanjo,which was re-awarded by late President Musa Yaradua and inherited by successive administrations, but as at 2023 the project remains uncompleted.
One now begins to wonder why such economically viable project will remain perpetually uncompleted, 17years after the contract was awarded.
Pundits have been quick to deduce lack of political will as the major factor that militated and is still militating against the successful completion of the East-West Road. Come to think about it, what else could have stalled the progress of such critical project if not politics?
Other possible factors could also be sheer marginalisation, otherwise referred to as ‘the strong killing the weak,’ as portrayed in George Orwell’s Animal Farm. It is hard to believe that it was masterminded by a deliberate attempt of the major tribes to oppress and surpress the minor ethnic groups in the country.
One is tempted to pinpoint primordial sentiment as yet another reason why a major infrastructural contract as the East-West Road could not be completed and delivered for upward of 17years.
Road, according to the Minister of Works, Engr Dave Umahi — who is currently on inspection tour of major road contracts across the nation, with key attention on the East-West Road — is everything you can think of in development.
The Honourable Minister in his words said, “Road is development, road is industrialisation, road is access, road is economy, social and just name it.”
It is in this light that we hail the initiative of the ‘Renewed Hope Agenda’ of the President Ahmed Tinubu-led administration, which has within the shortest time of assuming office mobilised the Minister of Works, Engr Dave Umahi who virtually came by road from Abuja to have an on the spot assessment of the state of the East-West, with a view to tackling the problem headlong.
The Minister did not come for sightseeing, but was fully equipped with fund releases to address the issue of the East-West Road once and for all.
If the unity of this great country called Nigeria had from the onset been put in the forefront, we wouldn’t have come to this point, where a project conceived and awarded since 2006 is still ongoing. That perhaps could have made the Guinness Book of Records negatively in some climes.
But thank God for the current intervention of the President Ahmed Bola Tinubu’s government. Our prayer is that this candle that is already burning shall never go dim.
As the saying goes, better late than never. We don’t have any reason to fail as a nation and that can never be our portion, but we must be determined to call the bluff and right the wrong as at when due.
