The Deputy Governor of Gombe State, Dr. Manassah Jatau, has urged the Nigeria Building and Road Research Institute to see to the bad roads across the country especially the federal roads linking Gombe with other northern states, with a view to easing the suffering of commuters while travelling.
The Deputy Governor said this when he received the Director-General of the NBRRI, Prof. Samson Duna, on Tuesday.
Jatau described the state of federal roads linking Gombe as calamitous but expressed delight that the meeting of the Institute in the state would provide solutions in mitigating the pains of travellers.
He said, “You cannot believe that the road leading to Bauchi has a collapsed bridge, the one leading through Bauchi is also collapsed. That you are here to meet, I urge you to do research. Every road has its peculiarity, and every society has its peculiarities. Your presence in Gombe, and your researches will help us from these calamities.
“You are doing very well in executing projects, let the public know what you are doing. Let people know that you are collaborating with Gombe State and impacting positively in the lives of the people.
“Take a particular look at the North-East, we have a lot of Internally Displaced People in Gombe State who are coming from the places devastated by insurgency. You can go round the state and will not see a single IDP, this is because we have deliberately avoided keeping them in camps, but integrated them in the society so as to avoid stigmatisation like it was with them in colony of lepers.”
He appreciated the visit and urged them to go round the state and see for themselves the transformation drive of their administration.
Speaking, the Director-General of the Institute, Prof. Samson Duna, said the institute had a mandate and a constitutional role to carry out researches on areas of building, roads, and construction.
He explained that the institute had offices in each of the six geopolitical zones, with the North-East Office seated in Gombe being the centre of the North-East.
The Deputy Governor further explained that “the institute’s presence is felt in almost all the local governments in the state, through building of schools using the NBRRI technology, construction of roads, erosion control, skills acquisition centres, among others.”
He noted that the institute was constructing their permanent office in the state capital which was almost 40% completed, appreciating the governor for allocating the plot of land for the office.
He commended the governor for the peace, security and infrastructural development of the state which attracted visitors to the state.
