Abandoned Road Projects: Delta Govt Revokes Ubulu-Uku- Obior Road Contract, Sets To Re-award It

By Frank Oshanugor

There is hope on the horizon that the road linking Ubulu-Uku town in Aniocha South Local Government and its closest neighbor, Obior in Aniocha North Local Government Area, which has been in a deplorable state over the years would soon receive positive attention from Delta State Government.

The state commissioner for works, Hon. Charles Aniagwu told ATLANTICNEWSONLINE in a telephone interview on Saturday that Governor Sheriff Oborevwori’s administration has revoked the contract earlier awarded for the construction of the road due to inability of the contractor to execute the project.

In his words, Aniagwu emphatically said “government has revoked the contract last week from the former contractor and we are going to re-award it.”

The people of the two agrarian communities whose livelihood depends largely on commercial activities with other towns and villagers through transport on that road, have been suffering silently as the deplorable state of the road has continued to worsen over the years.

Apart from farming, the economic life wire of Ubulu-Uku in particular which centres also on hospitality (hotels and guest houses), filling stations, etc has nose dived due to poor accessibility from the Obior end of the road. The road leads to commercial towns like Umunede and Agbor.

It was gathered that contract for the rehabilitation of the road was one of the project contracts awarded by firmer Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration which handed over to the current administration in 2023.

Regrettably, the contractor was like some other contractors who allegedly collected mobilisation fee and disappeared from the project sites with little or nothing to show for it.

Our sources revealed that some of the contractors who abandoned their projects later resorted to asking the Oborevwori government for project cost variation. Some contractors reportedly came up with over-bloated variations which ironically did not go down well with the state government; hence the decision to revoke the initial contract.

Our investigation revealed further that due to the high degree of insecurity on that route as a result of occasional presence of kidnappers,

operatives of the local vigilante group regularly man the route and are being supported by the well meaning citizens of Ubulu-Uku.

(Photos by Eddy Eboka-Osadebay)