Efforts to reintroduce tollgate for the maintenance of federal roads in the country was rejected by the Senate on Wednesday.
However, the Senate implored the Federal Government to undertake immediate rehabilitation and dualisation of major highways and inter-state roads across the country.
The Senate’s decision was sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Dino Melaye with 90 others senators.
The Upper Chamber also asked the Federal Ministry of Works to urgently explore additional ways to fund federal road rehabilitation projects in the country.
It mandated its ad-hoc Committee on Works to embark on audit of all road projects in Nigeria with a view to producing raw data for further necessary legislative action.
Leading the debate on the motion, Melaye complained that several trillions of naira had been spent on road re-construction and rehabilitation in the country since the return to democracy with minimal or no impact at all.
In his contribution, Senator Samuel Egwu, who supported the motion, said there was no better time to reconstruct all federal roads in the country than now that Nigeria is working towards diversification of the economy.
Egwu noted that federal roads in the South East in particular had been in bad shape since the civil war in despite the contributions of those from the region to the growth of the economy.