Ugolor Writes Tinubu, Calls On Okpebholo, Oborevwori To Declare Infrastructure Emergency on Benin-Sapele Road

 

Benin-Sapele Road 

Hendrix Oliomogbe 

Worried by the sorry state of the Benin-Sapele-Warri expressway, the executive director of Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Rev. David Ugolor has called on Edo State Governor Monday Okpebholo and his Delta State counterpart, Sheriff Oborevwori to declare an infrastructure emergency on the road, which connects the two neighbouring states.

In an Open Letter to President Bola Tinubu, which was copied Okpebholo, Oborevwori, the managing director of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), and political leaders, Rev. Ugolor establish a Joint High-Level Intervention Task Force in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Works.

The executive director urged President Tinubu to direct accelerated reconstruction of all failed sections, remove administrative bottlenecks and ensure that adequate funding and effective supervision remain priorities until completion.

The activist further wrote: "The Federal Ministry of Works and the NDDC should publish comprehensive information on contracts, funding releases, implementation milestones and expected completion dates for projects along this corridor. Public confidence grows when information is openly shared."

The ANEEJ director explained that there is no better opportunity for exceptional leadership as the federal government, Edo and Delta States governments are all led by the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), an opportunity for seamless cooperation across these levels of government to resolve a challenge of immense regional and national importance.

Titled"Rescuing the Benin–Sapele–Warri Corridor: A Test of Leadership and Cooperative Governance", he penned that highway and its connecting corridors have deteriorated into one of the greatest infrastructure failures in Southern Nigeria. 

He noted that what should have been a strategic gateway to the Niger Delta has become a corridor of hardship, insecurity and economic decline.

Rev. Ugolor 

As a son of the Niger Delta and a civil society advocate who has spent more than three decades promoting transparency, accountability and sustainable development, Rev. Ugolor emphasized that he is of the strong opinion that silence is no longer an option.

He further lamented that everyday, thousands of Nigerians endure hours of avoidable delays, damaged vehicles, escalating transport costs and significant economic losses.

He said: "Businesses struggle to move goods. Farmers cannot access markets efficiently. Students and workers arrive late or abandon journeys altogether. Patients requiring urgent medical attention face dangerous delays that can cost lives."

The civil rights activist said that the growing insecurity along sections of the corridor, couple with the the deplorable condition of the road has created opportunities for kidnappers and other criminal elements who prey on stranded motorists and passengers. 

He said that families have endured kidnappings, paid enormous ransoms, buried loved ones and continue to live with the trauma of violence that should never have been allowed to flourish.

Going by the the current state of the dilapidated expressway, he said that it is no longer merely a road maintenance issue but a public safety emergency, an economic emergency and a governance emergency.

Rev. Ugolor recalled that before 1991, Edo and Delta States formed the old Bendel State, noting that the separation was intended to deepen development and bring government closer to the people.

He added: "More than three decades later, citizens are entitled to ask whether that aspiration has been fulfilled when one of the most important roads connecting both states has deteriorated to this extent."