Edo awards 886km of roads in 6 years

The Edo State government on Thursday said it has awarded a total length of 860km of roads since the inception of the Governor Godwin Obaseki-led administration in 2016.

Briefing journalists on the general state of roads in Edo State, Newton Okojie, commissioner for roads and bridges, said bids for an additional length of 26.314km were opened two weeks ago, bringing the total to 886.314km.

Giving further a breakdown, Okojie said as of April 2022, the total length of asphalted roads is 545.7km while 314.3km length of the road not yet asphalted is ongoing, and the total length of road designed and awaiting approval for award is over 100km.

He noted that the update on the activities of government as regards to the development of roads in the state became necessary following public outcry on the bad state of some roads by Edo residents.

“A study carried out by one of our consultants in 2016 showed that Edo State has about 9700km of roads cutting across its landscape, and going by the rate at which communities are opening up their lands and selling, we know that this figure would be much higher now, maybe in the neighbourhood of 11, 000km.

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“Of the length, about 2700km of roads in Edo State are paved, the remaining 7000km are unpaved, also there is a total length of 763km Federal roads in Edo State all of which are paved.

“The task facing the state government is enormous and we know that everybody in the state will want their roads constructed but constructing 7000km of roads is no mean feat for any government no matter how large or developed the government is, particularly when we also put into perspective the economic situation of the country,” Okojie said.

The commissioner, therefore, assured inhabitants that the state government was not relenting in its efforts to make the roads motorable but it is being slowed down because of the rainy season.

“We want to appeal to the good people of Edo State to be patient with us, we are implanting the plans laid out in our Making Edo Great Again (MEGA) agenda, it is not possible to construct all roads in the state at the same time it will have to be done gradually,” he said.

Speaking also, Jonathan Lawani, commissioner for environment and sustainability, warned against indiscriminate dumping of refuse, which according to him, is posing difficulty to efforts in desilting drains across the state.