Dangote Cement Plc, Ibese has commenced the construction and rehabilitation of some roads bordering its 14 host communities within Yewaland in Ogun State.
The hard concrete road, first of its kind in South-West, began following approval from authorities at the federal and state levels on the design and layout of the plan for the area.
The roads have been divided into three phases with the 8 km first phase stretching from Ibese plant to Ilaro junction taking off about a month ago.
The commencement of works on the dilapidated road ended months of speculations by anxious residents who felt the project should have taken off earlier having been promised by Dangote Cement that the road would be the first priority after the commencement of production from the factory.
The management of Dangote Cement had promised the host communities that it would embark on the rehabilitation and construction of new roads within the communities as part of its Corporate Social responsibilities.
It also stated that the road would be concrete asphalt in furtherance of its campaign for concrete roads and to demonstrate to the whole world the superiority of concrete road over bitumen asphalting.
The manager in charge of the Ibese road project, Engineer Auwalu Halliru, explained that the roads are in three phases and that the commencement of the ibese plant to Ilaro junction marked the first phase, saying the 8 km road would be a world standard road in terms of quality and design when completed.
He stated that the company would have started the rehabilitation long ago but for the delay in the approval by the Federal ministry of Works and the state government both of which have to give the go ahead to the plan and design of the roads to rehabilitated.
Halliru said the host communities would be full of gratitudes to Dangote cement when the construction is completed because the quality of the road has never been witnessed in any part of the South-West.
According to him, the second phase of the road would be the 25 km Itori-Ibese road while the third phase would be the Ibese-Abeokuta road which will be interlock stone paved pointing out that both interlocked stone and the concrete would survive any weather and that is why they are better than bitumen asphalt.
“You know we are campaigning for use of cement concrete road and we want to use the Ibese road as a test case so that the whole world would see how good the concrete road is and the quality it is made of. Anyone who passes through the Ibese road when we finish the job would commend us for a job well done,” he stated.
The road construction, he said, was just part of the Dangote Cement’s CSR, saying the company was also providing water bore holes, rehabilitation of schools and health centres.
Excited residents of the Ibese community commended Dangote for the good gesture and described it as the fulfillment of promise made to them earlier.
Some of the residents were seen lined up the road watching the workers as the concrete was being laid.
The Asiwaju of Ibese, Chief Hezy Idowu, said the people are happy with the road but said Dangote Cement should go further by providing water and sharing part of the electricity being generated at the plant to the community.
He promised that much as Dangote would continue to help the host communities, the people would also continue to guarantee peace and the enabling environment conducive for uninterrupted production
