From Priscilla Ediare, Ado-Ekiti
The Project Coordinator, Ekiti State Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), Hon Sunday Adunmo, has said that RAAMP has commenced the construction of rural roads under backlog maintenance across the state.
Adunmo made the remarks while speaking with newsmen in Ado-Ekiti, capital of the state, where he also revealed that the agency has awarded over ₦38.5bn road projects.
He said, “Out of the 250km road projects, we are currently constructing a total of 131.58km of roads, and they are divided into three phases.
“The names of roads on phase one, covering 65.15km, include Igirigiri-Igimakogo, Ben Folarin-Oke Aso, Oye-Are, Ilupeju-Igbo Egan, FMS-Oke Ako, Ise-Imola, Afolu-Odofin, Owode-Anaye, among others.
“The roads on phase two are Ijero-Epe, Araromi-Iropora, Ikole-Isaba-Ikoyi. These are not rural roads but because they are in local places connecting communities, and these are the same routes that farmers have their farms.
“For phase three, they are Ido-Ipere-Iludun, Ado-Abe Koko-Ijarigbin, Agbado roads.
“These are the roads we are working on, and some of them are state roads. We are constructing them because the resources of the state cannot go round all these roads, as the state government has more than enough roads to take care of.
“It may interest you that the total length of federal roads we used to have in Ekiti was 376.8km, but because of the intervention that was done by the state, the whole thing came down to 342.5km, and as today, the total length of state roads we are having in Ekiti is 862.26km, and the urban roads we have 1301.1km, and the length of the rural roads is 8,103.32km.
“So, out of the over 8,000km, we are intervening in 1,000, and we will continue to move on like that. Because on spot improvement alone, we have 450km. We have projects in all the 16 local governments and more than 180 communities in the state.”
Commenting on the impact of RAAMP on food production in the state, Adunmo said, “New markets are building up on those new roads. And for farmers, since the beginning of the construction of these roads, they are no longer sleeping in their farms, becoming watchmen over any of their products because there is access for them to bring their products to the market.
“Linking urban roads to the state roads and the state roads to the federal roads. This has been saving a lot of farmers taking their goods to the market. Also, the security challenges they were having before have reduced. They know there is access, and vehicles can ply those roads at any time.”
Responding to the deplorable state of federal roads in the state, the Project Coordinator linked their poor conditions to long years of negligence by the federal government, especially its failure to undertake timely and comprehensive intervention.
Citing the Ado-Aramoko-Itawure road as an example, Adunmo said it was originally designed for vehicles with a 20-tonne capacity, but now articulated vehicles weighing over 60 tonnes are plying the road.
Adunmo, who commended the state governor, Biodun Oyebanji, for the road interventions across the state, emphasised that the state government cannot undertake full reconstruction of federal roads following the directive from the federal government that funds used to execute such projects would not be refunded.
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