Oyo, Ogun Residents Threaten To Block Ibadan-Abeokuta Expressway To Halt Loss Of Lives
MOTORISTS plying the Ibadan-Abeokuta expressway have threatened to ensure that the road is blocked and rendered impassable until President Muhammadu Buhari makes fund available to complete the abandoned rehabilitation works on the road.
The aggrieved road users were reacting to daily loss of lives , resulting from accidents due to deplorable condition of the road.Tension , however, heightened at the weekend when residents of Omi-Adio , Orile, and Kila in Ido Local Government and Odeda Local Governments areas of Oyo and Ogun states respectively vowed to stop vehicles from using the road if nothing is done by the federal government to address the bad condition of the road.
The concerned residents in a letter signed by Pa Fasanmi Coker protested the failure of the Federal Government to dualise the busy Ibadan- Abeokuta Expressway. They urged the government to begin the dualisation to check the high rate of accidents on the highway.
The protesters said the Ibadan-Abeokuta Expressway, being one of the oldest in the country, is overdue for dualisation.The controversial one-laned federal road was awarded in 2010 to an indigenous construction firm, KOPEK Construction Company, to repair the 78-kilometre road for about N4 billion.
But , the aggrieved residents who expressed disappointment over government’s handling of the road said that government short-changed the public , adding that what was on paper was dualisation and not rehabilitation.
They also faulted the contractor for alleged shoddy job done on the road , stating that major portion of the road are already collapsing.When contacted , the Federal Controller of Works, Oyo, Engr. Kayode Ibrahim appealed to the public to bear with the government, while blaming the economy for the condition of the road.
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