7th November, 2019
Host communities of the Zungeru Hydro dam in Wushishi Local Government Area of Niger on Thursday blocked the Zungeru-Tegina-Kontagora highway to protest the deplorable state of the road and lack of other basic amenities in the area.
The protesters, who carried placards with various inscriptions such as “We are suffering because of bad roads’ and ‘Power state without power’ vowed to continue their protest until their demands were met.
The state youth leader, Bello Shariff, who led the protest said the host communities had suffered untold hardship due to the bad state of roads.
“We appreciate the commitment of His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, towards the completion of the Zungeru Dam project inherited from his predecessor having considered its economic and social viability to the state, Nigeria and Africa as a whole.
“We are aware that the financing facility for the construction of the Zungeru Dam is to cover for the rebuilding and as well converting them to reinforced concrete highways for these major route – Bida – Lemu – Wushishi-Zungeru and Zungeru-Tagina – Kontagora Road to withstand the conveying of heavy equipment’s to the dam site.
“Our communities and source of livelihood have been exposed to untold hardship due to decaying roads.
“This is caused by serious traffic of heavy trucks conveying equipment to Dam site resulting to daily loss of lives, loss of man hours affecting business and economic activities and difficulty to convey agricultural outputs to the market by the predominate farmers in the communities,” he added.
He called on the state government to intervene and get Syno Hydro, the company handling the construction of the dam to live up to its corporate social responsibility in the area.
NAN reports that the state Deputy Gov. Ahmed Ketso, arrived the scene of the protest hours later and pleaded with the protesters to show understanding.
Ketso stated that the Gov. Abubakar Bello was currently in Abuja to get the Federal Government to intervene on the issue.