ISUIKWUATO — Former Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Hon. Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, PhD, has celebrated the reconstruction of the Oghighe/Urualla/Olukabi road in Oguduasa community, Isuikwuato LGA, saying it shows what federal representation and presence feels like.
In a Facebook post titled “Musings Of The Past” on Friday, the APC candidate for Isuikwuato/Umunneochi Federal Constituency said she stopped briefly at the road last week while driving through Isuikwuato.
The road, originally constructed in 1975, was cut off by a huge gully caused by years of erosion. For about 20 years, residents waded through a bush path diversion, with car owners spending hours on a journey that should have lasted 30 minutes.
How the project came
Hon. Onyejeocha said she reminded the late President Muhammadu Buhari about the road in 2019 as a condition for her constituency’s support.
”In 2019, the Ecological Fund Office visited the constituency and identified 10 erosion sites and two weeks later, the Federal Executive Council, FEC, approved it,” she wrote.
The project was handled by Messrs Foldams Engineering Company Limited.
Habiba Lawal, then Permanent Secretary of the Ecological Fund Office, said the reconstruction was one of 20 ecological intervention projects approved by President Buhari for the first quarter of 2020.
”This project was initiated through a request for an urgent intervention forwarded to the agency by Hon Nkeiruka Onyejeocha, member representing the Isuikwuato/Umunneochi federal constituency,” Lawal was quoted as saying.
She added that the intervention would mitigate flooding in Oguduasa communities and was “for the overall wellbeing of the communities.”
Security and economic impact
Speaking at the handover ceremony, Onyejeocha noted that the project could not be executed in 2007 “because of a lack of design” but that she was definite when she reminded the former President during a visit to Aso Rock with traditional rulers from Oguduasa.
”This road is critical to the economy of the area and the gully erosion posed serious danger to the lives of the natives, motorists and commuters,” she said.
”The erosion site also provided a safe haven for kidnappers, robbers and rapists, who regularly attacked unsuspecting travelers. To God be the glory, all that is in the past now.”
The erosion control project was delivered within 4-6 months in 2020, a non-election year.
Quoting Okey Udeh, Traditional Ruler of Oguduasa Autonomous Community, Hon. Onyejeocha said the monarch thanked the President and her office for coming to their rescue.
”Our communities have been cut off from our neighbouring communities. Our farmlands have been washed away, hampering economic development in our area,” the monarch said.
Legacy project
”With satisfaction in my eyes and a big smile on my face, I drove on and continued my journey in the Land of Isuikwuato where so many legacy projects lay completed and useful to the everyday users,” the Minister wrote.
”Those who benefit from these projects daily are here, well and alive. This is what Federal Representation and Presence feels like. When projects are visible to the blind and audible to the deaf, it becomes a Legacy Project.”
