The Senate Committee on Trade and Investment has appealed to Governor Nyesom Wike not to discriminate between federal and state roads in the course of his developmental strides in Rivers State.

The Chairman of the committee, Senator Francis Fadahunsi, made the appeal on Friday in Port Harcourt, during a town hall meeting with some stakeholders of the Eleme Local Government Area, shortly after the committee’s visit to the oil and gas free trade zone in Onne.

Fadahunsi expressed concern at the deplorable state of the Eleme section of the East West Road, which leads to critical infrastructure such as the Onne Port, the oil and gas free trade zone and the Port Harcourt refineries.

He called on the Federal Government to intervene and fix the road, which he said was as important as the Tin Can and Apapa port roads in Lagos State, adding that the Senate would do its part to bring the attention of the relevant authorities to the sorry state of the road.

Fadahunsi stated, “With the importance of this road like the Apapa and Tin Can Port roads, this is purely a Federal Government road leading to the ports and leading to the sources of our economy. So, automatically, we (Senate) will have to do something about it.

“We have to meet with our counterpart, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Works. We are going to plead with him to go and meet Babatunde Fashola (Minister of Works and Housing). I don’t think Fashola knows about the deplorable roads here. If he (Fashola) knows what he did for Apapa and Tin Can he will do it for this place; because he needs the revenue to work.

“So, I plead with the governor (Wike) that this is a federal road, this is an NDDC road and so on. He should not do that. The governor has done well. No other governor in the federation can match his development strides.

“If it is in his power today, if he awards a contract for that place, it is agitation from our own end that will mount pressure on the Federal Government to refund him. And we have been doing it. And that is the area where he can make enough revenue for the state government.

“If it is a matter of borrowing the money, that place (oil and gas free zone) will pay. It is a golden fish that will lay and has been laying the golden egg. Let it continue to lay the egg peacefully.”

Earlier, the Senator representing the Rivers South-East District, Senator Barry Mpigi, said the Eleme and Ogoni people were suffering daily on that road and accused the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio, of paying lip service to their plight.