The flagship of the Dangote Group, Dangote Cement Plc, has commenced the construction and rehabilitation of roads bordering 14 host communities within Yewa Land in Ogun State, South-West Nigeria.

“The novel project which would be implemented in three phases began about a month ago following approvals from the federal ministry of works and the state government on the design and layout of the plan for the area,” the company said in a statement issued in the country’s economic capital, Lagos. It said the projects are being undertaken as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility in the area of infrastructural development.

“The first phase of the project now in full swing, has led to the construction of8 kmstretch of world class, hard concrete road from Ibese to Ilaro junction, demonstrating the superiority of concrete roads over bitumen/asphalt variant and also supporting the group’s campaign for more durable concrete roads in the country,” the company stated.

The manager in charge of the Ibese road project, Engineer Auwalu Halliru, praised the management of Dangote Cement for the best in road construction project which he said has never been witnessed in any part of the South West before.

His words: “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.”

Halliru said that the host communities stand to benefit a lot from the second and third phase of the project involving the construction of 25km road stretch of interlocking concrete stones from Itori to Ibese road and from Ibese to Abeokuta road.

Commenting on the development, the Asiwaju of Ibese, Chief Hezy Idowu, said the people are happy with the high quality of the road. He enjoined Dangote Cement to continue with its good works 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.

The road construction projectends speculations by anxious residents of the community on the commitment of the management of Dangote Cement Plc in the rehabilitation and construction of roads as a value add to the host communities of its cement production factory located in Ibese and alsoadds to a number of community investment initiatives embarked upon by the organisation including provision of bore holes, rehabilitation of schools and health centers across its various communities of operation.

•Photo shows President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote.