Kebbi State Governor Abubakar Atiku Bagudu yesterday said over 51 drivers from the state were abducted while trying to make a detour on their way to Birnin Kebbi due to the poor state of the roads linking Yauri.

Speaking in Birnin Kebbi at a five-day meeting of the National Council of Works, he said he was concerned about the pain travellers went through daily on bad roads around the state.

He said: “The drivers told me they have to make a detour at Bargu in Niger State under Magama Local Government while going or coming to Kebbi from Lagos. The hardship is too much and it exposes them to danger in the hands of armed robbers and abductors.”

The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said President Muhammed Buhari’s administration inherited over 200 roads that were either uncompleted or abandoned amounting to N2 trillion, adding that only N500bn of the sum was paid to contractors by the past administration.

The minister said there was no state in Nigeria where the federal government was not executing one project or the other.

He said some projects were abandoned by contractors, engineers and labourers because of insecurity challenges, litigation and huge compensation to be paid by the government.

Fashola called on traditional, religious and community leaders in the country to support government’s efforts towards restoring peace in Nigeria.

•Sourced from a Daily Trust report