By Victor Akinkuolie, Ado-Ekiti

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The Peoples Democratic Party in the Southwest has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to seek help from private individuals over what it called poor state of federal roads in the country.
PDP Southwest Publicity Secretary, Chief Sanya Atofarati, said this in Ado-Ekiti on Tuesday in a statement and said the party “is worried that several thousands of lives have been lost to road accidents due to bad and unmotorable states of these roads, while bad portion of the roads have become safe havens for kidnappers and armed robbers”.
In the statement titled, ‘Admit incompetence, apologise to Nigerians over deplorable state of roads – S’West PDP tells Buhari’ the statement made available to journalists in Ado-Ekiti, lamented that roads in the Southwest were worst hit by the bad condition and neglect.
“The most unfortunate is that every part of the country suffers from this problem of deplorable roads. The only road linking the South to the North is unmotorable and in bad shape.
“We are tired of unfulfilled promises and pipe dreams. For instance, the Federal Government said it had injected over N22 billion in two sections for the reconstruction of Abuja-Lokoja highway, with a promise to complete it in December, yet is unmotorable.
“In June 2018, the Federal Government approved the sum of N185bn for 14 roads which included the Ado-Ifaki-Otun-Kwara state border, these roads are there unattended to. In Sept 2019, it approved the reconstruction of the 112 kilometres Ibadan-Ife-Ilesa Road at the cost of N79billion, the road is there abandoned.
“Similarly, in July 2021, the Federal Government approved the sum of N103.7billion for the reconstruction of roads which included the Benin-Ore Road, Nigerians are there to judge if truly there is value for these. More pathetic is the fact that, Nigerians have a president who is insensitive to their plight,” the PDP alleged.