The Senate and House of Representatives, Wednesday, directed the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, FERMA, to undertake a holistic assessment of all the roads in the country and report back to the National Assembly.
The Joint Committee on FERMA directed the agency to present its findings to both the Senate and House Committees on FERMA, to enable the National Assembly take appropriate action.
The chairman, House Committee on FERMA, Olufemi Bamisele, who gave the directive at a joint budget defence session organised with the Senate Committee on FERMA, said this became necessary because of the deplorable state of roads across the country.
He noted that most of the roads across the country were in very poor state and as such, constitute nightmares for travellers at present.
He recalled that in 2017, Enugu –Awka -Onitsha Road; Abuja -Lokoja-Okene Road; Kaduna –Abuja; Okigwe -Umuahia Road; Otukpo -Otukpa Road; Lagos -Sagamu -Ore -Benin Road; Lagos -Ibadan Expressway as well as Lokoja-Ajaokuta Road, among others were listed as the worse roads in the country.
“As at today, I do not know the nature or status of these roads, if they had moved from bad to good or worst to better due to rehabilitation work.
“However, in order to know the current status of these roads and other roads in the country, there is need to have a large scale assessment of the current state of Nigerian roads.
“In this regard, I urge FERMA to collate the list of all the roads in the country, stating their current status and furnish same to the committee within two weeks after the conclusion of the budget defence.
”This effort will help the committee to know which road needs urgent attention and necessary action,” Bamisele stated.
