By Chioma Obinagwam
The multi-billion naira industrial park being built by Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in Odukpami, Cross River State, faces a threat of not achieving its purpose unless the poor state of Calabar – Itu road that leads to the park is fixed quickly.
This is one of the discoveries by a team of online publishers drawn from the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) that was on a guided tour of the project on Thursday, May 11.
The over 100 kilometres of road that stretches from Calabar in Cross River State to Itu in Akwa-Ibom State, the publishers gathered, has been a victim of neglect by successive governments for over 20 years, according to a motorist, interviewed on the state of the road.
The motorist, who pleaded anonymity, expressed regret that the road, which has attracted budgetary approvals for repairs by four successive administrations, has remained unattended to. He said the first budget to fix the road was passed during the former President Olusegun Obasanjo regime. “But it was unattended to in spite of the budget,” he revealed.
He added that: “When nothing came out of the Obasanjo regime’s budget proposal, the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration came and also captured it in one of their annual budgets. This also did not achieve anything.
“This ritual moved to the President Muhammadu Buhari administration. President Buhari included the road in two annual budgets during his first term in office between 2015 and 2019; but no work was done.
“The same administration”he revealed, “captured the road in the budgets of 2020, 2021, and 2023. This is 2023, you can see that the road is still a nightmare for motorists.”
He expressed pain that the road, which he said, serves the economic needs of the people of both Akwa-Ibom and Cross River States, could pose a major threat to the NCDMD’s industrial park under construction as “it’s not likely that serious investors would take up any space there with the road as presently is.”
The Park is a masterpiece that was well-thought out by the NCDMB to ramp up the manufacturing capacity of indigenous hands with the aim of kick-starting manufacturing of inputs for real industrialisation of Nigeria.
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