By EMMANUEL UNAH

CALABAR- IT  has become a yearly ritual in Cross River State that during the rainy season, getting to Calabar the state capital or any part of the state by road is usually a  herculean task because of the unspeakable condition of the roads.

The two major roads that connect the state, Calabar- Ugep- Ikom and the Calabar –Uyo-Ikotekpene,  highways, which incidentally are federal highways, are in a tragic state of disrepair. Constructed during the General Yakubu Gowon era in the 70s, the federal government has not carried out major rehabilitation on the roads for almost 50 years.

Vehicles spend two days on bad spot

Over time, the culverts and   bridges on the  roads  have caved in while the tar on several portions of the roads   have peeled off,   leaving deep craters and gullies and  effectively turning them to death traps , as vehicles crash into them or get stuck on a daily basis.

Moreover, large trunk vehicles have taken over the roads constructed with the concept of serving as highways for light trunk vehicles and they cause severe damage on them effectively making movement dreadful.

It is not uncommon to find   vehicles stretching through several kilometres   spending up to two days   on one spot  because the road was blocked   by either a truck that had crashed into a crater or the gully  is simply too wide for any vehicle to attempt to drive through.

Miscreants make quick money

Miscreants take advantage of the bad state of the roads to extort money from commuters by blocking some sections of the roads on the pretext that they repaired the bad spots. When   Niger Delta Voice toured some of the spots, it took several hours to drive a distance of 50 kilometres because of the several stops   and detours one makes  owing to the terrible state of some spots on the roads.

Businesses crippled

The dire state of these roads have had adverse effects on   businesses in Calabar and most towns   in the state as vehicles, especially commercial ones take several days to make one journey .

A commercial driver with a public mass transit outfit, Akata Umoh, said the vehicle he got barely three months ago, has been terribly battered because of the bad state of the highways and he was  at a loss as to what to tell his company’s director on why the bus was in such a terrible state. “I got this vehicle three months ago and now it looks like an old vehicle, tell me what I am going to tell my director when he sees his car like this,” he said.

Sorry, no funds to effect repairs- FERMA boss

Federal Emergency Management Agency, FERMA, coordinator in the state, Mr Reginald Nwanebu, said effecting emergency repairs on the roads was the agency’s responsibility, but he added that there were no funds for rehabilitation work.

“We have captured the rehabilitation of these roads in the   FERMA budget for   2016   but no funds have been released to us,    so what we are doing is to collaborate with the Cross River State Ministry of Works to effect repairs on the roads and the money spent shall be reimbursed to the state,” Nwanebu stated.

We spent N20b, got only N250m refund – Atsu, A’Ibom commissioner

Akwa Ibom Commissioner for Works, Engineer Danie Osim Atsu, told NDV that the state has spent the sum of N25 billion to carry out rehabilitation work on the federal roads, but the federal government had only reimbursed the state with the sum of N250 million.

He said the Calabar –Ugep- Ikom and the Calabar –Uyo highways were  in very appalling condition, making  driving on them near impossible,  which prompted the state to intervene.

“We have carried out palliatives on federal roads in the state to the tune of    N25 billion and 19 billion was recommended by the Federal Controller for Works in the state,  out of which the sum of  N250 million only was reimbursed  us, which is the only reimbursement Cross River State has enjoyed compared to other neighbouring states,” he explained.

The Commissioner stated that the money invested by the state in the rehabilitation of the roads was having adverse effect on the financial situation of the state since its monthly allocation from the Federal Account Allocation Committee, FAC, is very low.

Repairs not in FG’s 2016 budget

“We are doing this because these roads are about the worst set of roads in the country because they are about 50 years old. And at the time of construction, they did not take into consideration the volume of traffic,  large size of vehicles and the amount of haulage carried by these trucks, which makes the roads cry for total reconstruction,” he asserted.

According to Engineer Atsu, the high traffic by trucks occasioned by the presence of quarries, cement factory, tank farms were responsible for the devastation of the roads even as the products they cart out of the state are federal exclusive items.

“We have many quarries, cement factories,    tank farms where trucks come from the northern part of the country to cart away  these products  and very soon, we are going to persuade them to partner with us in the maintenance of these roads,” he stated.

He said the federal government did not include the rehabilitation of the roads in the 2016 budget and blamed the members of the National Assembly in the state for not being proactive in pursuing the state cause in the repair of the road, adversely affecting the economy of the state.