The Federal Government on Thursday described as baseless the South-East Governors’ allegation of neglect in infrastructure projects, saying the allegation is “incorrect, unfair and flew in the face of available evidence”.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, while reacting to the governor’s allegations, said there had been even distribution of infrastructure development to all zones within available resources of the Federal Government.
Mohammed who debaunked the allegations in Ilorin, Kwara State at a public lecture and inauguration of Wards and Local Governments canvassers for re-election bid of President Muhammadu Buhari and his Vice, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, said that no part of the country, including the South-east, had been left out of the massive infrastructural projects of the Buhari Administration.
The minister clarified: “While this claim may have made headlines, it is totally untrue; His Excellencies were either misquoted or they were quoted of context. In fact, a total of 69 federal government projects are currently ongoing in the South-east.
“We will soon publish the full list of the projects and the state-by-state breakdown. Suffice it to say that the South-East, just like other geo-political zones, got N16.6 billion worth of projects from the proceeds of the 100 billion Naira Sukuk Bond shared equally among the six zones. I have taken journalists on a tour of some of these projects in the South-East,” he said.
For instance, the minister explained that the four roads being rehabilitated and reconstructed by the proceeds of the Sukuk Bond included the Enugu-Port Harcourt Dual Carriageway Section II (Umuahia Tower-Aba Township Rail/Road Bridge Crossing in Abia State; the Enugu-Port Harcourt Dual Carriageway Section I (Lokpanta – Umahia Tower) in Abia State and the outstanding section of the Onitsha-Enugu Expressway (Amansea – Enugu State Border) and the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway Section III (Enugu-Lokpanta) in Enugu State.
The minister pointed out that apart from the roads, the Federal Government was also constructing the N40 billion Aba-Port Harcourt section of the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, describing theproject as a strategic road linking Aba and other industrial heartland of the East with Port Harcourt, the nations oil hub.
He said: “Let me say that these projects were awarded by the last Administration which, however, failed to provide funding. As a matter of fact, a section of the Enugu-Port Harcourt road, which cuts across many states, was turned to a refuse dump before this administration came to the rescue.
“The ground-breaking of the construction of the 2nd Niger Bridge was performed on 10th March, 2014 but could not take of until 2017. The bridge, which is 1.59-kilometre in length, forms part of the 11.90-kilometre project.
“The contractor, Julius Berger, has completed the first 3 phases of the project, which have to do with the
Sub-structures. They are currently on the 4th phase, which is at 70 per cent completion stage.
“Some 310 of the 615 piles designed for the bridge have been sunk while massive sand-filling of the approach road has been carried out to the height of 5 metres. The target height is 7 metres”, Mohammed added.
According to him, the project is being solely financed by the Federal Government and noted that the South-east had never had it so good in the area of infrastructure, pointing that if the previous administrations have done even half of what the present administration is doing now in that region, no one will be complaining today.
“It is alright to ask for more, but it is unfair to say nothing has been done,” he said.
It would be recalled that the South East governors had, through the Director General of South-East Governors Forum, Prof. Simon Otuanya, at the presentation of a monitoring report on performance of the 2017 federal capital budget in the South East, recently accused the Federal Government of neglecting the zone in infrastructure projects.
