By Chinedu Adonu

Residents of Leja and Aku communities in Igbo- Etiti Local Government Area, Enugu State on Thursday rolled out the drums to celebrate as the Federal Government through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development commissioned a 4km rural access road.

The road projects include 3km asphalted road at Ohumeje- Eke Aku, handled by Unic and Sound Nigeria Ltd and 1km asphalted road, Egbugwu-Nkwo Leja handled by Mas Prudent Ltd both in Igbo-Etiti Local Government Area of the state.

Commissioning the road, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Hon, Dr Muhammad Mahmood Abubakar said they decided to construct the road because of its importance to farmers in the community, stressing that Aku is food basket of Enugu state.

Hon Abubakar represented by the Regional Director of the ministry, Mr Kehis Felix, said the access road was to assist farmers evacuate farm produce to market.

“After monitoring and evaluation, we found out that if we put this road in this shape it will help the farmer evacuate their farm produce from their farm to the market because 70% of what they produce here get to spoilage before getting to the market. It’s our aim to provide this access road so that farmer will have access to evacuate their produce.

“There is a lot of vehicular movement here and ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in 2020 capital project decided to locate this project here basically. That is not only the intervention we are going to do here, because the community is very receptive to government projects. We have also seen that you have so many value chain of crops here, like yam, cassava, cocoyam, rice and many other crops.

“We have come with whichever aid to assist the Farmers. The cost of the 4 km road is about 200 million naira. if you look at the quality of the work, the side range, hydraulic structures, embankment to divert water because the major thing that cause the spoilage of road is water, so additional effort has been made to make sure that the road is passable during the rainy season. There are other roads that are 95% completion. In addition to that we have solar light project and water project that will also be commissioned.”

“Aku community is a full basket of Enugu state. We want to touch the peasant farmers because 80% of what we consume today comes from peasant farmers.

The Commissioner for Agriculture, Enugu State, Hon Mathew Idu lauded the the Ministry for their support to crate access road for farmers in the community.

The commissioner represented by a director in the commission, Ozor Fidelis Chukwuma, said that the project is vital to the community and the state, stressing that they were known for producing large quantity of farm produce.

“On behalf of state government, we appreciated the Hon Minister for Agriculture, for the vital project in Aku and Leja communities. This will help the farmer evacuate farm produce to market before it get spoil. We we appreciate and thank the federal government for coming to our assistance”, He said.

In appreciation, the President General, PG, of Ohemuje community, who lauded the federal ministry of Agriculture and rural development disclosed that the community would now go back to farm with full force.

The commissioning was attended by, Enugu State coordinator, ministry of Agriculture and rural development, Mr Nwaogor Peter, Engr Obi Nnamdi, Igwe, Christopher Okwor and other dignitaries.