Chief Edwin Clark, an Ijaw chieftain, urged President Bola Tinubu on Sunday to immediately impose a state of emergency on South-South routes.
Clark bemoaned the terrible state of the roads in the oil-rich area in a letter to the president, calling it a serious problem that is causing the locals great suffering.
To lessen the suffering of the populace and promote economic growth, he encouraged President Tinubu to give the restoration and rebuilding of the area’s road system a top priority in the government budget for 2025.
“In the upcoming 2025 Budget, I am fervently requesting that you declare an emergency and instruct your Minister of Works and its associated agencies to intensify their efforts to fix these roads.
“Mr President, we, therefore, demand that in 2025, this situation of the Niger Delta, the treasure base of the country, should be declared an emergency without further delay,” the letter partly read.
Clark maintained that the region, being the treasure base of the country, should deserve some level of attention.
“Mr President, I realise that resources are lean and demands are many; it is however very difficult to understand why roads in the communities that produce the resources that keep this country going are in such a terrible state. It is already very sad that the Niger Delta is suffering from decades of environmental damage, which would take us many generations to recover from.
“At the current production level of 1.8 million barrels per day, which we the leaders of the region working with the government have achieved and are still working to increase, it is difficult to understand why the roads in our region should be in this very deplorable condition. With oil prices now at US$73 per barrel, we reckon that we are producing enough, and we in the Niger Delta cannot be in this condition. What is required to fix the roads is not even up to a week’s production of oil.”
“Benin-Auchi Road. Under normal circumstances, this road takes commuters 2½ hours. At present, passengers, on average, spend 7 hours on that road. In some cases, it is so bad that travellers have to go through some rural communities in Ekiti State before coming back to the main road.”
