Governor Abdullahi Sule has sought the intervention of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to rehabilitate the Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto federal roads.
Governor Sule made a plea for the agency to intervene when he paid a courtesy visit on the Managing Director of FERMA, Engr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi, in Abuja, on Wednesday.
While congratulating the new management at FERMA, the Governor said he was at the agency to seek for intervention to rehabilitate the deteriorated stretches of road from Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto, which he said have become an eyesore.
He said even though the federal government has awarded contracts for the construction of the road from Keffi-Nasarawa-Toto-Abaji, there are challenges that requires FERMA’s intervention before the contractors are mobilized to site.
“I already did my research and I realized that the two contracts from Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto have already being awarded. One of the contractors I was already told, the one handling the Nasarawa-Toto axis, has absconded. He is not on site. The other one is working at a very slow pace. That is why I came to see if I can get some support from FERMA to do some rehabilitation at the moment until things are sorted out,” he said.
In a chat with journalists shortly after meeting with the FERMA management, Governor Sule lamented that the stretche of road between Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto is capable of becoming a national embarrassment if nothing is done to rehabilitate it.
He said the road is significant especially that presently, more mining sites are being discovered in Nasarawa Local Government Area, with more visitors going into the area.
“But the biggest challenge is because of the second Niger bridge, the Loko-Iweto bridge that was recently completed. Now everybody coming to Abuja from the Southeast takes that road.
“The road is completely damaged. That is why I came to plead with FERMA to intervene before the road becomes a national embarrassment. Maybe some form of rehabilitation before the contractor is fully funded to come and carry out the work,” the Governor said.
Governor Sule lamented that as a result of the bad nature of the road, a journey that is supposed to last twenty minutes takes close to one hour and a half.
He pleaded with the FERMA to provide remedial measures even if only on spots that have become real eyesore.
Responding, Engr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi, Managing Director FERMA, thanked Governor Sule for the visit.
Engr Agbasi disclosed that contracts for the roads between Keffi and Nasarawa, as well as between Nasarawa and Toto, have already been awarded.
“The Nasarawa-Toto was awarded at the cost of N986m but unfortunately the contractor has abandoned the work,” the FERMA boss said.
He assured the Governor that his agency will undertake rehabilitation work on the roads in order to ease transportation on the routes.