Umahi Committed to Building Nigeria

The Minister of Works Dave Umahi has said roads constructed in Ebonyi State under his leadership would last 50 years without maintenance. 

Umahi stated this during his appearance on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Thursday.

The former governor of Ebonyi State noted that quality should always be considered when building roads in the nation, which he said should be done in accordance with Nigeria’s temperature.

“I also noticed that some of the projects, while you are still on the roads, they have gone bad,” the former Ebonyi State governor, who was sworn in, among 44 others, on Monday, said.

“When I was on Abuja-Lokoja Road, I discovered that the asphalt was flowing. And if you enter that road with speed, that is the end of such a person,” Umahi added.

“I did 3,500 kilometres of concrete road in Ebonyi State, and it is maintenance-free. For 50 years, you would not maintain it.”

He said: “I have directed that all the ‘no objections’ my ministry submitted to the BPP be returned.  We need to look at the new method of constructing our roads based on our climate”.

He claims that President Bola Tinubu’s administration is interested in providing input money to the building of high-quality roads across the nation.  But he added that the government is also looking into bringing down construction costs.

“We are looking at all these things. How do we cut down costs? Because the primary issue is also the cost of construction,” he said.

“We are looking at the figures but it looks like a lot of contractors are not willing, but I will make them to make the change – we are all engineers.

“I am telling them your profit, I will protect whatever thing you want to make but, let’s help Nigeria, let’s build a road that will last and the funny thing is that the government – the President will give out the money.”