President Muhammadu Buhari will next Tuesday perform the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a 260-kilometre super highway constructed by the Cross River State Government.
The ceremony was initially billed for September 21 but had to be postponed over claims that the Environmental Impact Assessment for the project was not carried out.
However, the grey areas appear to have been resolved as the president will on the 20th of October be in Cross River to perform the groundbreaking for the super highway, which upon completion, will serve as the evacuation route for the Bakassi Deep Seaport, a signature project of the Governor Ben Ayade-led administration.
In a related development, there is excitement in the state, especially in the communities where the groundbreaking ceremony will be performed by President Buhari.
In Obung Village in Akamkpa Local Government Area, the village head, Ntufam Boniface Edet, and the youth president, Mr. Philip Ogar, expressed their community’s delight that the president would be visiting.
Ogar said the super highway passing through his community would bring a lot of benefits to his people and other neighbouring communities even as he noted that the community’s youths and their neighbours, were excited about the project and what the governor was doing.
He hoped that the multi-billion naira project would “aggressively open up their area to development as many businesses will spring up, creating employment opportunities for the people”.
The youth president also hailed Governor Ayade for his vision and drive, assuring that his community would support the current government and provide whatever assistance that would be required to ensure that the project is achieved.
Also speaking, an environmentalist attached to the project, Mr. Francis Njeni, said his responsibility was to take stock of all the different species of trees that would be cleared to give way for the road and would ensure the replanting of such species in accordance with the policy of the state government.
Njeni stressed that for every tree that would be cleared, two or three of such tree would be replanted.
