According to Umahi, contractors cheated Nigerians with the substandard materials used to construct roads. Umahi said in Abuja on Tuesday in a meeting with contractors handling federal road projects.
“There is no project being constructed right now in Nigeria that is going to last for seven years. The question is: are we going to be maintaining or reconstructing our roads after every 10 years? That’s what we’ve been doing.
“I travelled from Abuja to Benin City through Lokoja, all the stretches of the road are on contract, ongoing. This is through the policy of the last administration, but how many of the roads are motorable? I travelled through the roads myself and I shed tears for the kind of pains our people are going through.
“I spent 14 hours on the road having started my journey from 10am and got to Benin City at 2pm the next day and I was very happy I experienced the pains. President Tinubu said I must travel through all the projects so that I’ll brief him on my experience and tell him the truth.”
The former Ebonyi State governor added:“I travelled to the South West, I’m not totally unhappy with the project there and supervision, as I gave them 80 marks. I’m happy that the directors are doing their work.
“I went to the part of the North Central, I’m very dissatisfied with the quality work and supervision. I went to Kaduna and I disagree with the design of the Abuja-Kaduna- Zaria-Kano Road.
On reports that cement price would hit N9,000 per bag if the government does concrete roads, he described it as false and a big campaign of blackmail against him by the cabals in the construction industry.
