The Director General, Due Process and Price Intelligence Bureau, Governor’s Office, Calabar, Cross River State, Alphonsus Eba, said the recent flag-off of Ukele road project in Yala Local Government Area in Cross River State, by the Governor, Prof Ben Ayade, was historic and a new vista of development in the State.
Eba stated this while he x-ray impact the project will make after completion that would facilitate socio-economic development of the entire communities in that part of the state.
He said: “Unlike a man who has made a promise to his people, we call him the promise keeper. The Ukelle project is one thing during the campaign that he promised that within his first tenure in office, it was going to be rehabilitated.
“Like I tell people, his Excellency came at a time where the economy situation in the state, was at almost at a bad stage, almost at an abysmal stage.
“Unlike a man who has made a promise to his people, we call him the promise keeper the Ukele project is one thing during the campaign that he promised that within his first tenure in office, it was going to be rehabilitated.
“Award of that contract is almost 38 kilometers starting from the point in Yahe going through Ebo to cover Wanikum, Wanikada and Wanihim to Benue border.
“The recent clash between Wanihim and Wanikade, part of the anger that was expressed by the people was that it takes an average Ukele man during the raining season about four to five hours to come out in a journey that would have just taken less than 30 minutes.
“The governor as listening governor who has made promise to his people even in spite of the heavy load he is carrying on the deep seaport, the super high way and various other project including the 247 kilometer dual carriage way covering the entire north has made it a special case that Ukele road specifically must be done.
“The whole consultant evaluation and the whole bidding from the financial bid was not less than N4.5 billion.
“We hope that any serious contractor can deliver that road in less than two years because it is less than 40 kilometer.”
According to him the people people in that part of Yala Local Government Area who are mostly farmers will benefit from the project.
“The people of Ukele are rural dwellers, farmers one of the main pre-occupation is garri processing in Ukele, farmers of yams and other cerealseries like rice and the others.
“I think the challenge over some has been conveying their crops to town and meeting up with social life that whenever we have factory activities at the Yala local government headquarters in Okpoma during the raining season, an average Ukele man is disconnected particularly from the northern Ukele axis which have Wanikom, Wanihim and Wanikabe.
“So today I tell you if there is anything that will make an Ukele man to say Ayade is the messiah God himself has come to human form to be is when this road is done and I am glad today that his Excellency has not lost sight of that and has made it a front burner”, he added.
