Written by Aliu S. Momodu.
Email: aliushafal@gmail.com
The Auchi Polytechnic-Jattu-Afashio road is undergoing deterioration not because of overuse through vehicular pressure. The entire length of the road is dented with cuts each about a metre length and about six hundred millimetres wide in dimension. No thanks to the action of an irresponsible telecoms company.
The telecommunications company carelessly cut through the asphaltic road to reclaim its cables which were buried in the ground before the road construction effort of the state commenced. At the moment, the newly constructed road is in an appalling condition due to the incisions it has received from the telecom company.
It wouldn't have been this bad if the company had taken the correct steps to reinstate the road to a usable condition. As a Professional in construction contract administration, I am aware that buried services are traced and removed and/or relocated before construction work commences. Not so with the telecommunications company's service cables.
The question I keep asking myself is whether the consultants and/or the road construction contractor weren't aware of the presence of such service cables before the road construction work began or whether it wasn't an act of negligence.
At the moment the Auchi-Jattu-Afashio dual carriage way which has cost the Edo State government a fortune to construct and the first of its kind in Edo State North zone has undergone wilful and deliberate devastation and no government agency has taken a step to take the telecommunications company to task for this act of impunity. Even the Ministry of Works has decided not to see. I am as surprised as anyone out there that up to this moment, the road is in a shabby state with the deliberately inflicted "wounds" on the road left unattended to.
I wish to use this medium to call on the executive governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki to come to the rescue of motorists whose lives are endangered by the deep and carelessly patched cuts on the road.
It is heartrending that the effort of the Edo State government in providing this piece of infrastructure for the people of Edo North has been shattered by the irresponsible action of an irresponsible telecom company.
That road which cost a humonguous sum of state's hard earned pecuniary resources to fix is now being laid wasted by the irresponsible insentience of a company whose only desire is to exploit the people without giving back to the society from which a lot of benefits have been derived by it. It is most sad that a business undertaking which should commit to social responsibility of a society in which it operates should commit itself to the destruction of societal infrastructure with such impunity.
It is high time the government intervened to forestall further deterioration of the Auchi-Jattu-Afashio road with all it's modern appurtenances and road furniture being cast into oblivion due to the wanton and deliberate, careless, frustrating and interminable inordinate desire of a telecommunications organization.
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