BOMBSHELL TWO!!! Port Harcourt Ring Road: Give Credit to Amaechi
~ Eze Tells Rivers State Government …Knocks Wike, Fubara for Reducing the Original Distance From 88Km to 50km, Hiking the Cost to N4billion Per Kilometer
…Says the Humongous Cost is Sheer Thievery and Qualifies the Project as Most Expensive Road on Earth
…Asserts that Fubara Riding on the Wings of Amaechi’s Legacies Confirms Wike’s Eight-Year Reign as Colossal Failure, Humongous Wastage of Time and Resources
…Says Amaechi’s M10 Dual Carriage Way Should be Revived, Completed
Posted By Town Crier News Nigeria
Published By Fitness Network Communications
Erstwhile National Publicity Secretary of the defunct New People’s Democratic Party (nPDP), Chief Eze Chukwuemeka Eze says nobody should claim undeserved credit over the Port Harcourt Ring Road which was conceived, designed and kickstarted by former Governor of Rivers State, Rt. Hon Chibuike Amaechi around April of 2008.
Reacting to the bogus assertions by the immediate past Governor of the state, Nyesom Wike that his administration gave approval for the project at the last State Executive Council Meeting of his administration in May and that no Rivers Governor can beat Sim Fubara on projects, Chief Eze said the project remains the brainchild of Amaechi who conceived and designed same to ease the crippling traffic congestion, drive a seamless urban – rural transportation network, connect the people, attract investments, open up every part the state for development and strengthen the economic competitiveness of the Rivers State.
In a statement made available to the media, the APC chieftain said the state government under Amaechi signed a memorandum of understanding with the African Finance Corporation (AFC) to construct the road conceived to be the largest municipal highway in Africa, under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement.
A critical feature of the ring road project from its master plan according to Chief Eze, would be the establishment of a new city north of the Port Harcourt International airport which is the Greater Port Harcourt City, another lofty idea of the Amaechi administration beautifully designed to compete with Abuja and Lagos. The new city received serious attention under Amaechi with the building of the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium which is just a component of the games village, an International Bus Terminal, the New Rivers State University, a five-star Hospital, modern road networks, schools, hotels, central business district and several other projects which have been left to rot including the Port Harcourt monorail which has its destination in the new city.
The project contracted to China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) originally spans through a distance of 88 kilometers at the cost of $700 million which is barely a hundred billion of the Nigerian currency as at that time, unfortunately, from available records and fact, the project distance seems to have been shortened by Gov. Fubara and his overlord, Wike, to about 50 kilometers to exclude Igwuruta, Omagwa Isiokpo and the rest of Ikwerre local government area including the Greater Port Harcourt City which extends into Etche, whereas the budget has jumped to over N200 billion, with a hike on the cost of each kilometer to an outrageous amount of around N4 billion.
A breakdown from Alabo George-Kelly, State Commissioner for Works, a critical part of the project which is the Ikwerre axis leading into the Greater Port Harcourt City has been cut off thus distorting the entire master plan and depriving the people of Rivers State the benefits of the project from the way Amaechi had originally designed it.
You would recall that during the pendency of the Amaechi administration, the ring road project advanced into the Igwuruta axis of the Greater Port Harcourt City with the beams of the flyover already on ground awaiting to be launched on the columns. But all through the administration of Wike, the Greater Port Harcourt City flyover project and the Greater Port Harcourt City project itself remained stagnated. This would not have been the case had those projects been sited in Obio/Akpor.
The party chief said Gov. Wike’s needless strife and bitter politics led to his idiotic reluctance in following the development patterns established by Amaechi and that sense of hate was the reason he could not achieve anything for the state and her people in the eight-year period he led the state as Governor.
“Every foundation his predecessor laid for the good of the state, he avoided and toed the path that led him nowhere. Now, the buses Amaechi bought and the ring road Amaechi started which form the basics of the current government has excited him to praise Fubara to high heavens as having done the best thing ever in the history of the state.
But these things were there for him to ride on, and he never did because they are Amaechi’s legacies and that’s why he failed woefully.”
Eze commended efforts by the current administration to complete the ring road project but expressed dismay over the distortions of the original master plan which has led to the exclusion of the Greater Pert Harcourt City which is a key component of the project developed to support Port Harcourt’s ambition of becoming a regional commercial hub.
He noted that a whooping Two Hundred Billion Naira was exorbitant for a project that has been reduced to mere 50 kilometers and accused former Governor Wike of being the brain behind the distortions and exclusions.
“The exclusion of the Greater Port Harcourt City which is a key component of the master plan of the ring road project was orchestrated by Wike in order to continue to downplay the development of the new city and surrounding environment especially those communities in Ikwerre LGA and his action is propelled by a sense of desperate hatred for other Ikwerre communities. You could see his ill-will at play during his tenure when he recycled development projects around Rumuepirikom and other surrounding communities.”
While calling on the Rivers State Government to shun Wike and reintegrate the excluded sections of the ring road into the project in order that the project would not be haphazard, Chief Eze called for an urgent attention to the abandoned M10 40-kilometre Dual Carriage Freeway, designed and commenced by the Amaechi administration to connect the Port Harcourt International Airport to the Onne Sea Port.
The first phase of the project was awarded to Lubrik Construction Company Ltd in March 2012, and connects the Prof. Tam David West Road to Ikwerre Road and opens up the Phase 1A Housing Development Area and the Central Business District in the new city (the Greater Port Harcourt City).
Eze described the ring road project as world most expensive road contract to be awarded in the anal of public procurement and added that the sinister motive behind such outrageous contract is to loot the common patrimony of Rivers people and stockpile money ahead of the envisaged rerun election in Rivers State and the 2027 Presidential election.
He affirmed the averment of the Network for the Actualisation of Social Growth and Viable Development (NEFGAD) that State Government should submit its 50.15-kilometer Port Harcourt Ring Road Contract, which was awarded for N195.3 billion, or about N4 billion per kilometer, to the Guinness Book of World Records for certification as the most expensive road in the on planet earth.
