The National Economic Council (NEC) on Thursday urged the Federal Government to release federal roads to states to fix using investors and placing tolls on them. The request followed the concerns of the council members about the failure of many Nigerian roads, some in less than six months of repair. Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi, who said this while briefing State House correspondents, noted that the states observed that over-loading was the major cause of the collapse of the roads.
According to Umahi, NEC asked the Minister of Power, Works and Housing to come up with strategies to regulate the weight of any truck plying the roads, which has been fingered as the major causes of the road collapse. The governors solicited the Federal Government to release the roads to states to fix using investors and placing tolls on them. Umahi said that the repair of federal roads by states would be more effective because there would not be enough budget of the federal that would be able to handle all the federal roads.
The governor added that there was a new technology of road construction whereby cement was used in place of asphalt for longevity. He said that the technology was being used in Ebonyi and he had spoken with a major cement manufacturer, Dangote group, having experimented it in Ogun state, where he constructed 28 km of concrete road. On the disturbances in some states, the governor said that the governors resolved to be moving round the geo-political zones together to preach peace and let the citizens to know that they are brothers and sisters.
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