Residents of Uboro Oro, a rural community in Urue Offong Oruko Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom state have petitioned the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) over some unexecuted road projects abandoned by the Niger Delta Development Commission and valued at N3.5 billion in the area.
The petition was signed by Bassey Isong, Chairman of the Project Committee of the Uboro Oro Progressives Union (UPU) while other signatories included Asukwo Mkpesit, Secretary of the Project Committee, and Okwong Otioro, the Legal Adviser and Effiong Unanaowo, the traditional ruler of the area.
“The interventionist agency had awarded an N90 million contract to a construction firm, for one kilometre of road spanning from the East-West road at Umume in the same Local Government Area”, the petition stated, adding that the contract was thereafter abandoned.
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The petitioners also pointed at the mega road project awarded by the NDDC to the tune of N2.6billion to another firm, with the initial mobilization fee of N300 million, regretting that the 18 kilometre road had since been abandoned.
The road, the petitioners explained, “was to begin from Oyoku Assang in Okobo Local Government Area through Okiuso and Eweme in the same Council area with a spur of nine kilometers from Umume on East-West road, through Uboro-Oro, into Mbo Local Government Area”.
The contracts, they said began with fanfare on Wednesday, 17 July 2013, as the village head of the Uboro Oro community handed over the projects to the beneficiary firms of the NDDC.
They noted that the affected communities were forced to move with the petitions after discovering that the contractors in alleged collusion with the NDDC officials had taken photographs of another completed project and presented the same “as evidence that the jobs had been completed”.
They, therefore, urged the Speaker and the ICPC to investigate the matter with a view to compelling the contractors to return to sites, especially now that the NDDC books are being subjected to forensic analysis over years of frauds and contracts scam.
