BENIN CITY: Following the campaign promises of Governor Godwin Obaseki to create 200,000 jobs, Edo State Government in Collaboration with AG Dangote has engage 50 Edo Youths, training them on how to use concrete pavement technology to construct road in the state.
Governor Godwin Obaseki made this known while speaking with Newsmen at Nevis street during road inspection in Benin City, the Edo State Capital.
He said after the successful training of these youths, they will become the pionees in an evolving revolution in road construction in Nigeria. “You are going to be the pionees in an evolving revolution in road construction in this country. Some of you have worked in our SEEFOR Programme where we try to construct road with direct labour, this time we are going to be using direct labour and concrete”.
The Governor said the success of this concrete technology in road construction will lead the nation to depend less on imported material like asphalt to finish our roads. He said hopefully we will get more cost efficiency in our road and spend less than we currently spend for constructing roads.
Obaseki said the use of the technology is to develop proficiency in a lot of the trainees so that they can be the new contractors using new technology to help us build roads. He advised the trainees never to see themselves as workers, but rather be serious with the programme assuring them that by the time they finish the training and experiment in the next couple of weeks, the government will support them with capital and equipment for them to start constructing roads as his administration will give them contracts.
He added that in the next three and half years the goal of his administration is to construct a minimum of 3,000 KM of concrete roads across the state. “If you get it right and get it well, the sky is the limit as you will all be independent people creating jobs for others rather than searching for jobs”, he concluded.
The project manager concrete road pavement Edo State Engr. Bob Ferguson Enabulele said the new technology is to show and train our indigene on how concrete roads are constructed. He said the need for concrete road at this time of our economic depression cannot be over emphasize. “The component and ingredient that make up concrete technology are cement, sand and granite and human labour. We have all these materials available in our environment. If we take good advantage of them, it is going to be very efficient and cost effective on constructing concrete road, this is the idea of the state government”.
Enabulele said the project is already proven to be efficient and use the template to extend this construction across 3,000KM roads in the state. He said the same technology is being used at Ogiefa lane off nevis street by indigenous contractor as it will help the state government to compare cost and find which is more favorable and the favorable on will be the template that will be used.
“We have 50 trainees made up of members of the community and some artisan drawn from the state and they are undergoing training. Part of them are lab scientist who have been trained on lab technology on how to carry out concrete test, cube test and soil test”.
