The people of Eket in Akwa Ibom state have risen in total
condemnation over the shabby handling of the Eket section of the East-West road,
describing it as an open cheat on the people of the area.
In a strongly worded letter addressed to the Minister of Niger
Delta affairs, Pastor Usang Usang, the Eket people through their apex
socio-cultural organization, Ekid People’s Union, rejected the alleged fraudulent
conversion of the Eket axis of the road to a simple carriage way.
“Eket people totally reject the palliative rehabilitation of
Eket-Oron road within Eket Township which Gitto Construction Company has been
struggling to re-surface at a snail speed for the last two years”.
The letter endorsed by Professor Asindi Asindi, the national
president of Ekid People’s Union, stated that the Eket people cannot accept the
replacement of the dualization of the road with a single road in the Eket axis.
The people maintained that Eket, which produces 50% of the
oil revenue in the country, could be so shabbily treated in infrastructural development
programmes of the federal government.
“Our people continue to remain peaceful but Eket people must
not be taken for granted in perpetuity. Note that Eket youths had initially
protested by blocking the weird rehabilitative road work, but were advised to
withdraw for the sake of peace”.
The Ekid People’s Union recounted that; “in a memo dated
November 26, 2014, the director of infrastructure, Ministry of Niger delta
affairs had conveyed the intention of
government to do a bypass from Ikot Usoekong village where the East-West road
had ceased to progress into Eket”.
They maintained that the so-called by-pass appears to be an
open cheat since the memo did not specify the direction of the by-pass.
The Ekid People’s Union wanted the federal government to
without delay, re-commence the immediate “appropriate
and undiluted construction of Eket segment
of the designed East-West road”, maintaining that the road provided a classic
example of how the federal government has been unfair to the people of Eket.
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