COMMUNITY CRIES OUT OVER ABANDONED ROAD PROJECT

The Elume community in the Sapele Local Government Area of Delta has said that poor road network in the community has hampered the smooth evacuation of its agricultural products.

The people of the community, who spoke to Newsmen at Elume, said that the most worrisome of the bad roads was the one abandoned since 1981.

A former councillor, representing Elume ward in the community, Mr Morrison Ikoyo, said the road was awarded to Hispanic Nigeria limited, by the Prof. Ambrose Ali administration in the defunct Bendel State. Ikoyo explained that work started at the initial stage, but was abandoned two years later when the military took over government.

He said that another road, the Ozue/Ugboru road project, had been awarded to four different contractors, but were yet to be completed.

The councillor said that bad roads abound in the community and had caused the people a lot of hardship since their major occupation was farming.

He said that the situation had encouraged ruralurban drift, as well as an increase in transport fares. Another indigene of the community,Omatie Egbrin, said that the state government should as a matter of urgency come to their aid to alleviate their sufferings.

According to him, if it were in the raining season that you embark on this journey, you would not have been able to enter into the community. `Even our sons and daughters who ran out of the village do not come during rains.

They manage to visit in the dry season,'' he said. Also speaking, another indigene, Mr Sunday Ojuhomu, called on the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOAEC) to also assist them. He appealed to the state government to remember the community in the implementation of its three point agenda of infrastructural and human capital development, peace and security..