OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos
Senator David Umahi has undertaken a tour of some road projects in the Southwest of the Country to carry out technical assessments of the quality of road construction, ascertain completion levels and to issue fresh directives where necessary.
The first project he inspected was the last 8.5 kilometres of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway handled by Reynolds Construction Company, RCC, that was redesigned to beat the soil texture, with concrete shoulder to firm up the road's lifespan and durability for the type of vehicular traffic expected on the road.
Afterwards the Minister visited the 108 kilometres Ibadan-Ilesha-Ife expressway to ascertain the quality of the executed rehabilitation work, before the issuance of a certificate of completion from the office of the the Honourable Minister.
After the inspection, Umahi expressed disappointment however, disclosing his displeasure to the contractor, saying; "this is a very poor job, making the road to deteriorate faster than envisaged, the government cannot afford to throw money into poorly executed jobs."
On the 86 kilometres, Oyo-Ogbomosho highway, Umahi commended the indigenous contractor, JRB Construction Company, for their quality construction equipment, the pace of their work and the quality of the finished constructed roads, saying he is impressed, but gave orders that concrete should be used in the valley sections of the road and concrete shoulders in the entire stretch.
Umahi also revealed that he will be revisiting the site in September to ascertain the level of work and push for the early completion of the work for commissioning, revealing also that he will be taking up the reconstruction of the Ibadan-Oyo section of the highway with the President.
The highpoint of the Minister's visit to the southwest is the visit to the University of Ibadan, where he directed the Ministry to redesign and fix all dilapidated roads within the University, noting that the Ministry is taking bold steps to intervene and concentrate on handling major roads that needs urgent and serious attention.
Umahi confirm that the roads spanning across the University of Ibadan are in bad condition even as he urged the Oyo State Controller of Works and contractors to synergize with the University to onboard a new redesign of asphalt or concrete reinforcements roads.
The Minister said "what we have seen here is very discouraging. I think we should do more for our universities than creating new one's. The infrastructure, the houses, they need very serious attention. And there are no routes to the university. So what we have directed is to give us the layout of the entire route, arranged in order of priorities.
Umahi assured that the Ministry will intervene to redesign all the roads. We are going to use concrete roads to intervene. And we are going to also put solar lights in any of the roads we are going to be building. We may also incorporate CCTV within the solar lights so that the Vice-chancellor can channel it to a point where they can view all the roads we are going to be constructing.
He further revealed that the rehabilitation of the roads stretching along the University of Ibadan will lead the Ministry to boldly intervene on road projects in the University of Ife.
"We will take a study tour of the University of Ife and the University of Nsukka. We would like to do this. The roads are so bad. That's just the summary of it. And we need attention as much as we can. But definitely something will be done.
"We are going to change the project to concrete because I'm sure that areas it has covered would have even failed.
But I want to see it with my eyes and take a decision about that. The Ife-Akure-Benin was awarded to be rehabilitated on concrete roads, the same standard of the coastal highway. He said".
Umahi explained that the size of road Infrastructure he is handling in North East and Northwest region is three times the size of what we are doing in the south-west.
We should do something for the south-west. I will go in search of the reinforcement to ensure that the work is done even as he directed the Ministry to work with the Vice chancellor of the school to study the road design for concrete road infrastructure or asphalt reinforcements
Also speaking, Vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan, Prof. Kayode Adebowale, said it's a privilege to welcome you to the premier university of this nation. This university started very small in 1948 and it did not start by fiat, it started by commission reports.
Prof. Adebowale explained that the Elliot Commission reports in the former British West Africa stated that there should be three universities. One in Ibadan, what we call University College Ibadan. And then one in Ghana, what we call University of Ghana-Legon. And the third one is Forabe College.
He hinted that The university started with three faculties, the Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Science and Faculty of Medicine While stating the university now has 23 faculties and two colleges.
"We have the postgraduate college that is the flagship of postgraduate education in the African continent, When we celebrated our 75 years anniversary, the university produced 6,500 master's
graduates and 722 doctoral graduates, which undoubtedly is the highest in the African continent.
The Vice-chancellor applauded the Minister of Works for the bold infrastructural steps to address deficit roads in the country adding that it is a privilege to have him in our university.
We have not had this before in recent times. And what he has come to do is he has made a guided tour of the university, a university of about 1,500 hectares.
He is looking at intervening,
you know, on the construction and the renovation of our roads. And he didn't just believe what is on the paper. He wanted to come and see it physically.
The Minister also buttressed the need to consolidate bigger road infrastructure project in Southwest, stressing that the magnitude of road construction he is handling in the North West zones is three times bigger than what he is building in the Southwest.
No comments:
Post a Comment