Politics Of Nigeria’s Federal Roads

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

From the look of things, the Federal Government has a lot on its plate with regard to efforts needed to fix its roads scattered all over the country. Some of them are: East-West; East-West Coastal; Lokoja- Abuja; Ibadan-Oyo; Benin-Ore; Oshodi-Apapa; Lagos-Ibadan and others.  For this reason, the government needs all the help it can get.

Road users were, before the Christmas and New Year festivities, happy that their ordeal would soon be over when Julius Berger plc and RCC Nigeria Limited were working on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway. This hope went off in a puff when the two construction giants told the media that what they were doing was just a short term patch patch so that city people who were travelling to their villages last December to display the money they had been saving since January 2012, would not end up in the morgue or arrive home in coffins.

What further heightened this tall expectation was government’s revocation of the three-year-old concessionary agreement it had with Bi-Courtney Highway Services and that Julius Berger – was to handle section 1 (from Lagos to the Shagamu interchange) – and RCC (to be in charge of section 2 which is Shagamu to Ibadan) – immediately came into the picture.

In 2009, before their relationship went up in smoke, the Federal Government concessioned the 125-kilometre road to Bi-Courtney, which was to invest N89.53bn on it. With the Build, Operate and Transfer arrangement, the company was to recoup its investment within 25 years.

From media reports, users of the road may still endure for a longer time. This is because, the staggering funds it would consume would be debated and approved by the Federal Executive Council and that the contract has to conform to Section 15 (4) of the Public Procurement Act of 2007 which states that it has to pass through public tender. Moreover, the two new companies or whichever firms secure the contract have to be patient to secure an iron-cast agreement with the Federal Government. Going by what happened to Bi-Courtney, it is a matter of once ambushed, thrice wary.

The delay in fixing the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, as a result of officialdom, also affects the state of many federal roads all over the country. Then one begins to ask, why should state governors not be allowed to fix their own segments of such roads and get reimbursements later from the centre? This matter came up in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, during the All Nigeria Editors Conference between 12 and 16 September last year.

In one of the sessions, three governors were on the high table: Godswill Akabio, the host; Jonah Jang of Plateau and Emmanuel Uduaghan of Delta. Some of the governors, who could not attend, sent representatives. Tony Iyare, immediate past special adviser to Governor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State, who stood in for his principal, was the one who unwittingly kicked off the argument.

He prefaced his address with a complaint about the Calabar/Uyo federal highway, a journey of one and half hours, which took him and his vehicle over four hours of rumba dancing. He, therefore, appealed to Akpabio and his counterpart in Cross River, Governor Liyel Imoke, to pool resources and repair the road, notwithstanding that it belongs to the government at the centre.

The host seized the opportunity to explain to the editors his efforts, not only on the artery in question but other federal roads in the state. Akpabio said he once wrote to the Works Minster, Mike Oziegbe Onolememen, over them. As he put it: “Last week, the minister wrote back that the FG now has enough money to rehabilitate the roads.” Akpabio lamented that for 31 years, Uyo was cut off from Aba in Abia State and that if the Calabar-Uyo road were to be in order, the journey would not take as long as five to seven hours. Notwithstanding the bottlenecks, Akpabio told the audience, his government went ahead to fix and even dualise the 37-km Ikot Ekpene-Abak road which, for over 35 years, was in a bad shape.

At this point, Governor Jang sprang to his feet and complained that his state government fixed a federal road and President Goodluck Jonathan promised to refund whatever was expended. But the minister was said to have spoilt the show when he said, “No, we did not pass through due process.”

Speaking on the same roads, Uduaghan said that Akpabio was even lucky that he received a reply: “We wrote to them, they did not respond. In fact, the resident engineer for federal roads wrote that our people must not touch the roads.” But the governor, given that his people were suffering, went ahead.

At that point, a participant shouted from the hall: “It is necessary to exhibit cowboy approach!” Everyone bent double with glee.

Joke apart. Why is the situation like this? According to a Nigerian proverb, a man stumbles on a snake and it is killed by a woman. What is important is not who gets rid of the reptile but that an avoidable havoc has been averted. There is no doubt that political differences, fear of the possibility of the road contract sum being inflated and who will receive the credit for the repair are the possible reasons. Despite this politics, users of the road are suffering.

At any rate, a middle ground can be reached by the two parties if they sit, brainstorm and come up with a single design, cost and others which, from the outset, will be agreed upon. The Lagos State government adopted this approach on the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway when it submitted a proposal to the Presidency. With that, rejection of refund request by states to the federal government may no longer happen–unless there are some elements of mischief.

 —Ademola Adegbamigbe 08055002056.

 .This article originally appeared in TheNEWS magazine of 28 January 2013