Calabar-Itu Road threatens success of Nigeria’s 1st oil and gas park – GOCOP
An investigation by a team of online publishers drawn from the Guild of Corporate Online Publishers (GOCOP) has revealed that the Calabar-Itu Road will be a major threat to the productivity of the multi-billion naira industrial park built by Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in Odukpami, Cross River State.
According to GOCOP, the industrial park may not achieve its purpose unless the poor state of Calabar – Itu Road that leads to the park is fixed quickly.
GOCOP made the discovery while on a guided tour of the project on Thursday, May 11.
The publishers gathered that the over 100 kilometres of road that stretches from Calabar in Cross River State to Itu in Akwa-Ibom State has been a victim of neglect by successive governments for over 20 years.
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A motorist that was interviewed about the state of the road 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 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. It 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, yet no work was done.
Speaking further, he revealed that the same administration 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, saying “it’s not likely that serious investors would take up any space there with the road with its current 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.