Lucky Obukohwo, Reporting
Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has dared the federal government, saying it will block all entrances into the state roads from the federal government roads until it takes the necessary actions on reconstructing and rehabilitating them.
The party’s chairman, Dr. Anthony Aziegbemi made this known in Benin while speaking on the successes recorded during the party’s local government campaign rally in Edo North and Central respectively.
He said the abandoning of the federal roads in the state is a clear manifestation of the enormous hatred the federal government has for the state governor.
Aziegbemi said due to the deplorable conditions of the federal government roads, motorists spend man hours on the roads and in order to get to their destinations, result to taking the state roads, which thereafter put those state roads in a bad shape.
“We noticed something very sad and criminal in nature, which is, All federal roads in Edo state, they are not motorable.
” They are in extremely bad shapes. Those are the videos I said I was going to send to you. Between a Ebele and Uromi, one of the members of my campaign team, counted 459 trailers lined up on that road, no movement, why? because of the bad spots.
“The Sobe-Oluku Benin road, a trailer fell there, people spent several hours on that road. Is it the Benin-Auchi road, around the Ekpoma axis, around the university of Ekpoma and you don’t even go there.
“So, you start wondering, why is the federal government so wicked to Edo people? What did we do to them? Edo state is a transport hub for the country. If the roads are not good, you can imagine the man hours lost, the hygiene situations on those roads, the goods that get perished on those roads, you will see the video.
“Some people will tell you that they have been on those roads for the past seven days. Where are they taking their bath? Where are they using as their restroom? How are they feeding? Do they make allowances for those seven days on the roads, I doubt, gentlemen of the Press, I have never seen anything like this in my life. If I didn’t go and somebody told me, I will not believe.
“Those roads were criminally neglected by the APC-led administration just to punish Edo people and we are sounding this warning.
“Because of the bad state of federal roads in Edo State, the trucks now divert into state roads and spoil our roads.
“So, we must protect the roads that are being done by Edo tax payers money on Edo roads.
“So, we are going to block all entrances into Edo State roads from federal government roads in the state until the federal government takes the necessary actions on reconstructing and rehabilitating the federal government roads in the state.
“Is it the Benin-Sepale road? I don’t know when any of you have passed that road of a recent. It is like there was war. I am sure even Ukraine as we speak, have better roads than Edo state.
“As I said, we are giving notice, going to block all entrances into the state to draw the attention of the federal government to take this issue seriously because we can’t continue with this way, we can’t.
“The GDP is being affected with this bad deplorable federal roads in the state”, Aziegbemi said.
Aziegbemi thanked the people of the state for their patience adding that the state governor will do its best to fix the state roads to make life easy for them.
“We can’t thank the people of the state enough for their patience with the federal government.
“The Edo state government will continue to look after their interest and maintain all state roads”, Aziegbemi said.