33 years after, C’River resumes work on abandoned FG road

The Cross River State government has revealed that significant progress has been achieved on the 33-year-old Adiabo-Eseku road project, abandoned during the military administration of late General Sani Abacha.

The state commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Hon. Ankpo Edet, disclosed this on Monday during a guided tour of the project by the Think Cross River Initiative.

Edet said that the Federal Government had already constructed three bridges on the road, which was awarded in 1992 before its abandonment.

He remarked that the progress of work has seen to the sand-filled swampy area of about 2.7 kilometres of the 10-kilometre road, noting that the road, when completed will reduce travelling time from Calabar to Akwa Ibom by about 30 kilometres because of the diversion.

He said “The decision of the state government to take over the road project is to reduce the bad travelling experience by Cross Riverians and Nigerians at large. The major challenge of the project is that about four to five kilometres of the road is swampy and needs to be sand-filled to achieve the quality of road we need. Already, we have done about 2.7 kilometres of sand filling and also realigned the road.

“The same contractor that was awarded the project in 1992 is that same entity handling the project as we speak and they have made reasonable progress.”

Speaking during the tour, the Director General of the Think Cross River Initiative, Edem Darlington, said that the idea of the tour was to update Cross Riverians about what the government was doing.

He explained that the Adiabo-Eseku road is about the single biggest project embarked upon by the present administration.

Darlington enthused, “Our idea is to get the minds of the people to buy into the governor’s idea and support his projects across the three senatorial districts of the state. What the governor is doing affects everybody, whether you are from Cross River or not.”

He added that when completed, the Adiabo-Eseku road project will bring succour to the people who have endured several years of torture, using the Calabar-Itu road as an alternative.

He said, “There are times when the people plying the Calabar-Itu road spend like two to three days on the road because of its bad state.”

He lamented that in some cases, funerals have been cancelled due to the horrible nature of the Calabar-Itu road, stressing that once the Adiabo–Eseku road was completed all that suffering would become a thing of the past.

The road will provide an alternative for commuters going to Akwa Ibom and other parts of Nigeria.