Some lawmakers have taken up the rehabilitation of the Obajana-Kabba-Ilorin Road. When work started last year on the road from Kabba to Egbe, being ‘phase II’ of the rehabilitation contract awarded by the then Goodluck Jonathan administration, residents of Okunland located in Kogi West Senatorial District, had cause to be happy.
The disrepair of the stretch had long caused them much grief.
Apart from being cut off as a major link between the Southwest of Nigeria and the North, economic growth in the towns and villages along the road became stunted as motorists avoided the area like a plaque. There were cases of robbery, killing and rape cases experienced daily by local travellers who did not have other options.
The then Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, while flagging off the rehabilitation of the Phase II of work on the road (estimated to gulp N8.22 billion) in April, 2014, explained that the 80km stretch of road will serve as a major economic artery to Obajana Cement Factory, provide access to the nation’s premier Steel Plant in Ajaokuta, connect Kogi and Kwara states and also serve as a connector-highway that links the North-South Arterial route A1 (Lagos-Ibadan-Ilorin-Kaduna-Katsina) to the North-South Arterial route A2 (Warri-Benin-Lokoja-Abuja-Kaduna-Katsina).
The project awarded to Messrs CGC Nigeria Limited, was scheduled for completion in three years.
But the joy of the people was short-lived. Work indeed had commenced from the starting point at Kabba through the
starting point at Kabba through the 10 kilometers stretch to Ayetoro-Gbedde while the quality and pace of work was well received by road users.
However, within few days to the postponed February, 2015 presidential and national assembly polls, roughly one year after it was flagged off and half a year after the commencement of real construction work, CGC, the Chinese contractors handling the project, moved their equipment out of sites and did not return. It’s been 13 months since the contractors left site!
Recently, members of the national assembly from Kogi West axis, unable to bear the endless wait on government and many years of unfulfilled promises by the Dangote Group, owners of Obajana Cement Factory, to reconstruct the road from Obajana to Kabba as part of its corporate social responsibility, resorted to self-help. The trio of Hon Sunday Karimi (Yagba Federal Constituency), Hon TJ Yusuf (Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu Constituency) and Hon James Faleke, running mate to the late governorship candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November, 2015 election in Kogi State Prince Abubakar Audu, it was gathered, in addition to reaching out to well-meaning indigenes, decided to pool resources and embarked on palliative measures that would breathe some life into the 46 kilometres stretch from Obajana to Kabba, which has not been in use for a decade.
Hon Sunday Karimi said, “What we are doing is palliative job. The road has been completely cut off. We felt we can’t tar the road, so what we are doing is scraping, levelling, grading and compacting.”
The federal legislator disclosed that the decision to engage a structural firm to work on the road and alleviate the suffering of the people living in that area was the discovery that the foundation of the bridge at Okebukun had gone bad and the rings holding it had broken amid fears that by the end of the next raining season, the bridge would collapse and the people cut off.
He said the road to Obajana which hitherto was 20 minutes drive from Kabba now takes two hours explaining that the target of the legislators was to reduce the burden of long travel time as well as reopen the route to business activities and meaningful living for the residents whose only means of livelihood are farming and trading.
He said work on the road was in top gear and expressed hopes that it would be ready for use in April. He however relayed the worries of the residents that trucks from Dangote Cement, may return and spoil the road, adding that youths from the area have vowed to bar trailers from plying the road.
“The problem is that the trucks spoiled the road and that bridge. The youths called our attention that they will not allow Dangote trucks to ply that road. We got accross to Alhaji Aliko Dangote through Hon Buba Jibril (Lokoja/Kotonkarfe Federal Constituency), and Dangote informed that they were almost at the conclusion of negotiations with the federal government that will lead to the reconstruction of the road from Obajana to Kabba. He told us what we are doing is unnecessary that they are coming to do stonebase reconstruction. But we know that story has been there for four to five years. If they start soon, we’ll be happy as part of the social responsibility that is expected of an organisation like that to start giving a little back to the people. But on our part, we can’t wait for them to fulfil their promises. It is an old story”.
Karimi explained that non-payment of certificates and intractable kidnap of expatriates in Kogi State have kept the CGC contractors away from the project site. He commended Senate President Bukola Saraki for his role in ensuring that funds were allocated for the road in the 2016 budget.
A former member of the House of Representatives (Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu), Hon Duro Meseko, who is spokesman for Faleke, said:
“Hon James Faleke and his other two colleagues, Hon Sunday Karimi and Hon Tajudeen Yusuf were moved by the pains of the people living along the road as well as commuters who pass through hell before navigating the pothole ridden federal highway. They felt it was their social responsibility as leaders and representatives of the people to help in making life better for the people. They wasted no time in taking the bull by the horn. Honestly, this to a lot of people is unprecedented.”
– Agbana writes from Abuja
