Former Chairman,
Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service Matters, Sen. Aloysius Etok, has called on the Federal Government to urgently repair the dilapidated Calabar-Itu highway.
Etok made the call in an interview with newsmen in Calabar yesterday.
He said that the highway which links Cross River and Akwa Ibom was strategic to economic and social activities in the states, adding that there was no other motorable road connecting them.
According to him, the National Assembly members from the two states in the 7th Assembly did their best to ensure that the road was repaired without success.
He said in spite of their efforts, ‘the executive arm of government did not consider it necessary to work on the road and this is very embarrassing’.
“That road is in a terrible state and we the members of the National Assembly from the two states then did everything possible so see that road was repaired.
“Unfortunately, the executive did not consider it necessary and if the executive does not want to do anything, there is little the legislature can do.
“What we are now saying is that the Federal Government should remember that we are part of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”, he said.
According to him, the Calabar-Itu road was captured in several budget estimates of the past administration.
The former senator also said the road had continued to be a death trap, having worsened over the years.
