Reps To Probe Federal Roads Constructed Under Yar’adua, Jonathan, Buhari Govts

Members of the Green chambers made the resolution after the adoption of a motion moved by Hon Dachung Musa Bagus under matters of urgent Public importance titled “Motion on the Daily death of Nigerians as result of bad roads in Nigeria”.

Consequently, the House mandated the Committee on Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA, under the chairmanship of Hon Richard Olufemi Bamisile to investigate all roads constructed by the Federal government from 2007 to date and report its findings to the House within few weeks for further legislative action.

The House equally urged the Federal Government through the Federal Ministry of Works and FERMA to include the construction and rehabilitation of the bad roads in the country in the priority list for the 2020 budget.

According to Hon Bagus, “the challenges caused by poor nature of our roads in the country which are in a deplorable condition which make it difficult for road users and commuters to ply without recording avoidable loss of life and enormous damage to vehicles”

He also stated that most Federal Highways were constructed in the 1970’s and since then no major quality construction or rehabilitation has been carried out on these important road networks.

The honourable member further stated that these Federal Highways have been death traps, most of the routes that link further states to the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja, are at the verge of being cut off from being part of the federating units of Nigeria. 

He said he was “Concerned that if urgent measures are not taken to rehabilitate roads in order to improve the economic and commercial activities of the people in terms of infrastructural development, they will continue to wallop in abject poverty which can lead to the total collapse of the social infrastructure. 

In his words, ‘This can threaten the existence of some States as federating units of the federal Republic of Nigeria if severed from the road network to the Federal Capital Territory’.. While moving the motion, Hon Bagus raised the alarm that more Nigerians have been killed on the nation’s highways due to the deplorable conditions of the roads than the dreaded Book haram insurgency despite several billions of Naira spent on the roads over the years.

According to him,” only yesterday a bridge collapsed in Ekiti State and people died in the process, people die on the roads on a daily basis, all the roads are in a sorry state. “We as lawmakers, we must urgently address the issue because if we don’t do something now, we will not be able to the next level of greatness of our dream”

The motion was unanimously adopted when it was put to vote by the Honorable Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila.