The Minister, who expressed the government’s commitment on Thursday while inspecting the Phase III part of the project from Zaria to Kano, said it was one of the priorities of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to him, due to the government’s commitment, in the past few months, Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji-Fashola, visited the project sites with a powerful delegation.
Abubakar said that after the Minister’s visit, a set of engineers also visited the project for assessment.
He said that was also followed with the visit of the Permanent Secretary of the ministry who led a team of other engineers.
“This is how committed we are toward the completion of this project before the end of this administration. This is done because we have prioritised the project.
“From President Buhari, the Minister, myself, our staff, engineers and the contractors we are all committed to ensuring that we delivered this work.
“That is why we do not leave any stone unturned.
“We have some challenges actually. In the beginning, the scope was a rehabilitation of the existing road.
“But having started work, we realised that we need to reconstruct the road completely. This is now the stage that we are.
“So, if you are moving from rehabilitation to reconstruction, it takes time. It is entirely reconstructing the road.
“The road has stayed for so long without being given any much attention, especially if you talk about maintenance which makes a life span of a road longer.
“When this present government came, we set up a plan to ensure that all our roads are being maintained, and those that require reconstruction are being reconstructed,” he said.
The Minister commended President Buhari for being a listening leader who yields to advice from professionals.
“When he was told that the road needed to be reconstructed, he agreed with us.
“As you are aware, we started from Abuja-Kaduna-Kano, which is about 378 kilometres. When you multiply this by two, since we have a dual carriage, we have about 800-kilometre road.
“You can imagine the distance; to build a road like this takes time; therefore, we are fully committed to seeing that we complete it within the shortest time possible,” Abubakar said.
