Youths abandon protest and leave East-West road

On Sunday evening, hundreds of teenagers from Eleme and neighboring villages in Rivers State, who had laid siege to a part of the east-west road in Rivers State, paused their protest and will leave the road at midnight.
Following assurances from the Chairman of Eleme Local Government Area, Obarilomate Ollor, that the contractor awarded the contract for the reconstruction of the road has been mobilized to the site, the demonstrators have ceased their protest, according to our correspondent.

Ollor, who spoke to reporters at Trailer Park, Ejamah, Ebubu Eleme, where the contractor deployed its equipment to begin work, said the decision to suspend the protest was reached after careful consideration of several factors, including the need to allow work on the road to begin, the suffering of the people, and the collapse of business activities in the area.

People will not hesitate to return to the road if action is not made to reconstruct it within a specified time frame, he said.
He bemoaned the road’s poor condition, which connects the area’s main ports and businesses with Akwa Ibom, Cross River, and many local government regions.

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Fyneface Dumnamene, one of the protest’s organizers and the Executive Director of the Youths and Environmental Advocate Centre, stated that the demonstrators will leave the road by midnight on Sunday.
He stated that if nothing major is done on the route, the demonstrators will return in 14 days.
The youngsters had been on the road since Monday, July 26th, when the local council issued two ultimatums to the federal government to reconstruct the route, both of which were ignored.
Passengers and commuters were forced to walk for long distances, and economic activity in the vicinity ceased as a result of the siege on the road.
Godswill Akpabio, the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, stated last week Thursday that the government had provided N2.5 billion to the contractor to move to the site, and that attempts to secure the N85 billion needed to complete the project from the Sovereign Wealth Fund would be intensified.