FERMA Repairs Roads, Links Stranded Niger Delta Communities

The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) has pledged to continue efforts at eradicating all potholes on the country’s federal and state highways, as it repairs roads linking to stranded Niger Delta communities.

Naija News reports that the “Connect to Your Destination” and “Operation Zero Portholes” campaigns, which were introduced in December 2023, sought to reconnect isolated communities that had been cut off from other regions due to the deteriorating state of the nation’s federal and state highways, as well as to remove all potholes from these routes.

FERMA Managing Director, Engr. Emeka Agbasi, made this commitment during a three-day inspection of roads in the Niger Delta region, including the Mbiama Junction section of the East-West road, the Port Harcourt-Osiokpo-Elele-Omerelu-Imo State border road, the Opolo-Elebele-Emeyal road in Rivers, Bayelsa, and the Ete-Abak road in Akwa Ibom states.

Agbasi stated that with the campaigns, poor roads in Nigeria will soon be a thing of the past. Agbasi was represented by the Director, Roads Maintenance and Management Services, FERMA Headquarters, Abuja, Iniobong Usoro,

He said, “In line with our ‘Operation Connect to Your Destination,’ which the MD flagged off in December, we are here today to see what has been done in Akwa Ibom State.

“We started off in Port Harcourt, we touched Bayelsa and now we are here in Akwa Ibom along Ete-Abak road, in line with the MD’s vision, we’ve done a concrete double box culvert to connect Ikot Abasi with Uyo, the state capital, because in the past, there were lots of complaints by road users, and motorists.

“And in line with our mandate, which is to ensure that we provide safe motorable roads for those who are commuting, we’ve been able to achieve what you can see here, my team and I and the Zonal Director, including the FERMA in Akwa Ibom State made sure that the mandate given us was carried out.”

FERMA’s Federal Roads Maintenance Engineer, Festus Okafor, spoke about the restored Ete-Abak road in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State. He stated that nearly all economic activity in the areas had previously stopped due to road failure before the agency got involved.

Okafor said, “This section of Ete-Abak road was so bad that all commercial activities in the area stopped drastically because no road users could pass here and we usually have flooding problems in this place.

“So when FERMA moved in, we observed that there is need for provision of a double box culvert so that we can connect the road to Ikot Abasi, that’s what we have done, we also provided concrete lined drain of 200 meters length and we patched all the critical sections within CH 10 to CH 12, so between CH 10 to CH 12 is porthole free and all the failed sections within that section has been attended to by FERMA.

“In fulfillment of our President’s Renewed Hope Agenda, and our proactive Managing Director, Engr. Dr. Agbasi, you can see that we have actually connected this important community to Uyo, thanks to the management for giving us approval to intervene in the cries of the Ikot Ubo Ekpe people.”