The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, has inspected the ongoing 9.6km Agho-Owina-Upper Owina-Evbuotubu Road project in Egor Local Government Area of Edo State.
The governor also inspected the side drainage at Okada avenue and the State Police Command Headquarters Road with large drainage to channel water into the moat.
Addressing journalists during the visit, Obaseki said the project was designed to address the challenges of erosion and flooding in the areas.
He said, “This project is designed to take care of the large population of residents in the Evbuotubu area. This is a new area and it’s densely populated. The citizens here have been suffering from very serious erosion and flooding. I promised that before I leave office, we will undertake a comprehensive design to come up with solutions.
“This is the solution we have come up with to drain all the water to the lowest points in this catchment. Only after dealing with the issue of drainage can we now begin to build the roads.”
According to him, “At some point, some of these roads were built but because of flooding, we lost all of them. As a government, we have done very substantial analysis and design work to make sure we first capture as much of the flooding as possible before we commence re-building all the roads in the area.
“There are two drainage systems – one on the powerline taking water from Adolor and 19th streets into the original water storm master plan to drain water. The water storm projects built about 10 years ago will drain water from that axis and what is left from the Erhunmwunse end will be drained in here and taken out. After that is done, we can now resurface all the roads.
Obaseki added, “We have a date of August 25th 2025 set to complete all the major work here but we are pushing the contractor to ensure they finish before August next year.”
While inspecting the construction work at the State Police Command Headquarters Road, Obaseki said his administration is working hard to modernize the ancient City of Benin.
He noted: “You can see how we have regentrified the State in the last 8 years with infrastructural development like the Secretariat building and other projects. We are creating more infrastructure and security cameras to make people safe.
“There was no drainage when the colonial master laid out the GRA; most of the compounds were large properties as water drains into the large properties. With the build up today, water that should drain into open areas now finds its ways into the roads. This has caused perennial flooding and bad roads across the City.
“We are trying to re-channel water. We are building the drainage now and seeing where the water will empty into. It’s a challenge on how to do our drains but now we are re-designing the drainage system across the State. When we finish, we now resurface the roads and put in the necessary road infrastructure like street lights, sidewalks, street cameras and get a feel of a modern city where people can walk freely and feel safe.”