FERMA promises to fix Akwa Ibom highway in two weeks

The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) is to finish, in two weeks, the reconstruction of the failed portions of the Essene-Edemaya axis of the East-West Road.

The Federal Road Maintenance Engineer for Akwa Ibom State, Asuquo Ayara, told newsmen yesterday after conducting them round the reconstruction site in Essene, Ikot Abasi Local Council of the state that previous efforts failed due to shoddy job.

He promised that with the intervention of the agency, the re-constructed road would be durable when work finishes in a fortnight.

Ayara said the four-kilometre road would not be closed due to its importance to the socio-economic activities of the state, as it serves as the shortest link to Port Harcourt, Rivers State via Abak.

His words: “We are working on the Essene spur to Edemaya. The reason why we chose that road is because the main alignment from Abak to Ette has a collapsed culvert and we know that road is a very busy one. It takes a lot of heavy vehicular movement, including most of those ones that take materials from Akampa to parts of the state and Port Harcourt.

“There is a collapsed culvert at a point, and most vehicles now take a diversion through the Essene spur to Port Harcourt and that portion is very bad, so we decided to do an intervention there. Our people are on site working. If that road closes to traffic, there is going to be a big problem because that is the only road that links to the East –West Road. That is why we chose to work on that road.”

“We are also doing vegetation control on the Ikot Ekpene-Itu/Cross River border road.”

The Site Engineer, Sola Omimago, said underground water was responsible for the regular collapse of the facility, adding that the removal and excavation of the 1.5 metres of unwanted soil would go a long way in addressing the menace.

The Chief Technical Officer, FERMA, Nkereuwem Bassey, said the agency also clears highways for good visibility.

During an on-the-spot assessment of the Ikot Ekpene – Itu/Cross River border road, Bassey added that vegetation control prevents accidents.