By Andy Asemota
The Senate has mandated its committee on works to ascertain the status of the rehabilitation of dilapidated Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway which gulped N22. 387 billion about two and a half year ago.
The Upper Chamber of the National Assembly resolved in plenary presided over by the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, that the Committee on Works and FERMA should examine among others, the report from FERMA and the Federal Ministry of Works in terms of budgetary allocations for repairs and maintenance and extent of work done over the years on the expressway.
The law makers also rose with a three point agenda, which also urged the works ministry and FERMA to immediately put in motion machinery to temporarily rehabilitate the road pending its total reconstruction to reduce the hardship and suffering of motorists and commuters.
The Federal Ministry of Works, the Red Chamber said, is to include further funding for the construction of Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta Expressway in the next Appropriation Bill.
The Senate expressed worry that if no immediate measure is put in place now pending total reconstruction of the road, the industries along the axis would be completely cut off from accessing raw materials from the Lagos seaports and transporting finished goods to and fro Lagos and elsewhere.
“Deeply saddened that even as we speak, thousands of our people are in agonizing hardship as a result of the deplorable state of this critical infrastructure,” the Senate enjoined the works committee to report back within four weeks.
Moving the motion on urgent need for palliative repairs and total reconstruction of the express road sponsored by no fewer than eight senators, Solomon Olamilekun Areola (Lagos West, APC), lamented that despite the said May 2018 programme of rehabilitation nothing was done to make any difference on the critical road till date.
Presenting the lead debate on the motion, Adeola, said thousands of citizens and hundreds of articulated vehicles are daily held up for hours in traffic gridlocks for upwards of six hours at a stretch for a journey that ordinarily would not last 90 minutes with resultant huge loss of man-hours, untold sufferings, accidents and unfavourable business environment for tee inf industries in the axis.
