C/Rivers community completes access road to Cameroon

Tired of waiting for the state government to resume rehabilitation work on the abandoned road linking Okoroba community in Etung LGA of Cross River State with Cameroon Republic, the community has mobilised its people and completed the project.

A philanthropist, Mrs. Getrude Ogbeche, reportedly supported the community to complete the project.

Our correspondent reports that the reconstruction work took the community about six months to complete and it gulped over N5m, much of it from Mrs. Ogbeche.

Residents said the road was abandoned for many years and that it inflicted pain and difficulties on them as they had to trek over 10 hours before accessing or evacuating their farm produce to nearby markets and towns.

Vehicles never accessed the community before now, except motorcyclists, who charged heavily because of the difficult terrain.

With the completion of the road, journey into Okoroba community which is less than 10km to Cameroon, has become less risky and less stressful.

Apart from the donation from the philanthropist, the locals taxed themselves and bought materials used in the rehabilitation.

Speaking to journalists at the site, the Managing Director of Omondo Nigeria Limited, Bishop Ndoma Akpet Nyambi, explained that, “The erosion control project of Okoroba beach road involved design and construction of a paved road from the beach in a way that has reduced stress of accessing Okoroba village for socio-economic activities.

“We had to carry out a survey where gully erosion was found to be a major threat to the community which had also washed away the road.

“The community provided the coarse, fine aggregates, hard core and wood which assisted to prune down the cost of the project.”

Bishop Nnyambi further said they also used manual labour to replace instead of heavy machinery.

In order to control the gully at the base of the slope, the team of engineers also adopted stone pitching as energy dissipater.

One of the youth leaders of Okoroba, Abraham Usani, commended Mrs. Ogbeche for giving back to her community even though she was Ogoja by matrimony.

He also praised his community members for rising to lend material support.