Enugu Assembly declares state of emergency on S’East roads

The Enugu State House of Assembly has declared a State of Emergency on all federal roads in the Southeast zone.

The development is sequel to a motion in the House, which called the attention of the lawmakers to the deplorable state of all federal roads in the zone.

In the motion, which was sponsored by Hon. Chinedu Nwamba of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), representing Nsukka East constituency, the lawmakers called on the Federal Government to take urgent steps towards rehabilitating the roads.

Nwamba, in the motion, stated that “residents in Enugu State and its environs, for over a decade, are faced with myriads of problems as a result of the deplorable state of federal roads.

“It seems the State is forgotten in the areas of construction of new roads, rehabilitation and maintenance of federal roads. Incidentally, this ugly trend has persisted despite promises made by the successive federal government regimes on the said roads. Among the roads in question are the Port-Harcourt-Enugu and Onitsha-Enugu highways.”

He added that “whereas, the Enugu to Onitsha road, which usually takes about 40 minutes in a journey when the road was in good condition now takes three hours. The road is so bad that almost every vehicle that applies it usually breaks down before completing a full journey. On the Enugu-Port-Harcourt highway the story is the same as the journey, which normally lasts for two hours is now five hours.

He argued that the bad condition of the roads is unsafe for Enugu inhabitants and has hampered economic, political and socio-cultural activities of the people, as countless accidents have been recorded on the roads.

He said, “There appears to be porous security on those roads since criminals use the opportunity of slow movement of vehicles to dispossess people of their valuables.”