By; BALA B. BITRUS, Minna
Governor Abubakar Sani Bello of Niger State has told the contractor handling the repairs of the 98 kilometres Minna-Suleja Road to redouble efforts to beat the onset of the rains.
The road, though a Trunk A grade road under the purvey of the federal government, is being handled by the Niger state government as the federal government appears unready to fix the road which has for years been in bad shape.
The rains are just about to set in and there is much to be done on the ongoing work on the long stretches of the road hence the directives by Governor Bello.
The Governor inspected potions of the work along the Gangare axis of the road during his visit on Wednesday. Gangare is a small village in Paikoro Local Government area, about 25 kilometres to Minna, the state capital.
Governor Bello expressed satisfaction with the quality of work but urged the contractor to speed up the work before the rains sets in.
He advised that it would be unwise to allow the rains sets in while work on the project was yet to be accomplished as the rains could make the work difficult to be handled with ease.
The Niger state government waded into the repairs of the badly damaged Minna – Suleja road to alleviate the sufferings of motorists who ply the road daily after the initial dualiasation work on the road was abandoned by the federal government.
Though he commended the contractor for good job execution, Governor Bello expressed concern over the snail speed in the pace of the work.
“So far, i am satisfied with the quality of your work. However you have to increase the pace with which you are working. My concern is the slow pace of work. You need to expedite action and deliver the project on time” he told the contractor.Niger state government had sometimes mid last year committed over 400 million naira on repairs of failed portions of the road but the rains and continuous use of the road while the repair work was going on made the work a futile exercise.
The Governor who recalled what happened last year, told the contractor that “the rains would soon be here and you have to finish the work before the rains come so that the essence of our intervention would not lost.”Engineer Basam Awal, the representative of the contactor handling the project, assured that more efforts would be made to meet the deadline.
