Bayelsa State Governor Senator Douye Diri described as commendable the inclusion of Nembe-Brass Road among federal projects under the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) Road Tax Scheme by the federal government.
The Federal Executive Council (FEC) at its meeting last week named the long-conceived federal highway among 44 other selected projects to be built in partnership with the NNPCL.
Governor Diri in a statement from his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Alabrah, said that after several letters and visits to President Muhammadu Buhari about this and other projects in the state that require federal intervention and partnership, it was gratifying that the Federal Government decided to allocate the road for construction.
The governor also praised the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, who was the governor of the state, for his role in ensuring that the project got the go-ahead from the FEC.
During a visit to President Buhari at the Presidential Villa in October 2022, Governor Diri sought the support and collaboration of the Federal Government to develop infrastructure in the state.
He affirmed that “being the most coastal and riparian of the 36 states of the country, Bayelsa faces very peculiar environmental challenges. This places a greater burden on the cost of infrastructure development.”
He said his administration was building only the three senatorial highways in the state, which are all federally conceived projects designed to end in the Atlantic Ocean because of their importance to the people of Bayel and the country.
They include Yenagoa-Ogbia-Nembe-Brass Road (Bayelsa East), Yenagoa-Angiama-Oporoma-Ukubie Road (Bayelsa Central), and Sagbama-Ekeremor-Agge Road (Bayelsa West).
In June last year, the Diri administration had halted and started construction of the Nembe-Brass highway. The first phase, which covers 21 kilometers and 10 bridges, is expected to cost 54.01 billion naira.
During his visit to the president, Governor Diri also sought his invention to correct the injustice done to the state in the controversial revocation and reassignment of the state license of the Atala oil field (OML 46) to another party.
He also expressed the will of the state to hand over the Bayelsa Medical University (BMU) to the Federal Government to cover the South-South region in compliance with the President’s policy of establishing six new Federal Universities of Medical Sciences and Biomedical Technology throughout the country. the six geopolitical zones.
