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Ndubuisi Orji and Fred Itua, Abuja
The National Assembly, on Wednesday, directed the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to undertake a holistic assessment of all the roads in the country and report back to the parliament.
FERMA is expected to furnish both the Senate and House Committees on FERMA with the outcome of the assessment, to enable the National Assembly take appropriate actions.
The chairman, House Committee on FERMA, Olufemi Bamisele, who gave the directive at a joint budget defence session organised in collaboration with the Senate Committee on FERMA, said this has become necessary owing to the deplorable state of roads across the country.
The lawmaker noted that most of the roads across the country are in very poor state and as such presently constitute nightmares for various travellers.
He recalled that in 2017, the Enugu -Awka -Onitsha Road, Abuja -Lokoja-Okene Road,, Kaduna -Abuja, Okigwe -Umuahia Road, Otukpo -Otukpa Road, Lagos -Sagamu -Ore -Benin Road, Lagos -Ibadan Expressway ,as well as Lokoja -Ajaokuta Road amongst others were listed as the worse roads in the country.
“As today, I do not know the nature or status of these roads, if they had moved from bad to good or worst to better due to rehabilitation work etc.
“However, in order to know the current status of these roads and other roads in the country, there is need to have a large scale assessment of the current state of Nigerian roads.
“In this regard, I urge FERMA to collate the list of all the roads in the country, stating their current status and furnish same to the committee within two weeks after the conclusion of the budget defence. This effort will help the committee to know which road needs urgent attention and necessary action,” Bamisele stated.
