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Road rehabilitation works at the Ibadan-Abeokuta expressway which was abandoned four years ago has resumed. On Monday, workers and heavy equipment belonging to an indigenous construction firm, Kopek, were seen working on the road.
Residents close to the road described the development as a huge relief and applauded the federal government. They however called on the federal government to dualise the expressway to forestall the frequent accidents occasioned by the road’s narrowness.
An 82-year-old resident was quoted as saying: “How can one explain that this road is one of the oldest federal road yet it has not been dualised . When it was constructed many decades ago , we don’t have the volume of vehicles now passing through this road. Today, we have thousands of cars plying this expressway daily and this is enough reason to dualise this road. Apart from that this expressway remained one of the busiest road in the country, with a link to all parts of the country. So, we are appealing to the federal government to quickly see that this road is dualised”.
A staff of the construction firm handling the job explained that the road was initially awarded for dualisation but was later revised to rehabilitation. He said work stalled on the road due to paucity of funds.