How will the generality of Nigerians rate the Muhammadu Buhari administration in the provision of road infrastructure these eight years? In this special report, ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE writes that though the administration has done much in road repair and reconstruction, Nigeria still wallows in transport infrastructure deficit
One sore fact that Nigerians have come to accept as the reality of the Muhammadu Buhari years as the President of Africa’s most populous country is the relativity of his performance rating. How people assess his administration depends largely on where they stand, which probably impacts what they are seeing from their standpoint. While government officials – and many private individuals alike – insist the administration has set an unbeatable record, many citizens may disagree with such a rating.
Ask citizens living along the Lagos-Ogun border communities, or travelers and regular users of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway for instance, none would mince words that they would have prayed for a better deal than the nightmare they have been sentenced to by a government that once vowed to tackle the road infrastructure deficit between six months or maximum one year period. The question on their lips as the administration winds down in less than two weeks’ time is: Just how many years will it take to fix the 127.6km Lagos-Ibadan expressway? Many disappointed Nigerians still feel bad that even when the repair of Lagos-Ibadan expressway was split into two sections, it is taking Nigeria 24 years (taken cumulatively) or 10 years (the Goodluck Jonathan administration took it off the concessionaire, Bi-Courtney) to reconstruct its busiest and perhaps the most strategic highway.
Earlier in the year, the Minister for Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN), had vowed that the Lagos-Ibadan expressway would be one of the critical projects President Buhari would love to sign off on. The minister first promised April 30; then, it became May. Recently, fielding questions from reporters, he said the contractor had left the busiest part of the project, which is the Lagos end (from OPIC to Berger) for the last. For him, it is hard for the contractor to complete the project on schedule with the multiple human impact and other challenges being encountered on the ever-busy road. For many citizens, especially those in the southern parts of Nigeria, it is an embarrassing excuse that the fate of the all-important Lagos-Ibadan expressway still remains uncertain, as the advent of torrential rain makes it more unlikely for the contractor to finish the reconstruction before May 29 handover date.
Under Buhari, like his predecessors, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Nigeria’s busiest road with a carriage capacity for over 450,000 vehicles per day, has become an Abiku, which in the late Prof. J.P Clarke’s poem, has suffered repeated rebirths for several seasons. But if the administration’s performance in road infrastructure in the Southwest is adjudged by critics to be below par, same cannot be said in the Southeast where President Buhari deserves veneration for eventually delivering the Second Niger Bridge, which has been on the nation’s surgical table for over 35 years. Conceived in the second republic by the late President Shehu Shagari, the Second Niger Bridge was started by military President Ibrahim Babangida before it suffered fits of abandonment for decades.
What remains on the Second Niger Bridge, from information gleaned from Fashola, is the completion of all the connecting roads: the 4km interchange road at the Asaba end, and 2km out of a 7km link road at the Onitsha end. Last Christmas, travellers had a taste of the pudding, and were informed it would be one of the projects President Buhari would be glad to sign off with, as curtains fall on his administration.
Nigeria’s total road network
The total network of roads and highways in Nigeria is 195,000 km. For a population of over 200 million, this, according to worlddata.info, amounts to 0.91 metres per population. This puts Nigeria in 210th place on global ranking. According to Statista, a global statistics and research website, Nigeria has a total of 36,000kms of federal government roads (otherwise called Trunk A) as at 2018. The size and magnitude of the nation’s roads notwithstanding, Nigerians have always clamoured – and deservedly too – for more motorable roads. Incidentally, it would seem it was the Trunk A roads constructed before and shortly after independence that had weathered the wear and tear of use, as many others constructed in the 70s, 80s and 90s had become deathtraps.
Buhari’s commitment to making a difference and delivering an improved national road network has, however, remained far and in-between, despite the huge holes financing such ambitious national transport infrastructure has dealt on Nigeria’s purse. At the last count, the Debt Management Office said the Buhari administration might be leaving with a total debt stock of N77 trillion; it also projected Nigeria may hit the N80 trillion mark by year end. Incidentally, over 70 per cent of these debts were borrowed to fix the arterial roads, called federal roads across all the six geopolitical zones.
To stop perceived sleaze and trim down its expenditure on its roads, the Federal Government stopped all sub-national (state) governments from taking any remedial actions, insisting that no refunds would be made on any federal roads worked upon by any state government. Fashola (who, at some point in the life of this government, handled three composite ministries), once said Nigeria would require about N3 trillion yearly to fix its roads deficit. For a government that inherited roads rehabilitation obligations, it not only lacked the capacity to muster this kind of funds; it also had to face humongous debts from failed obligations to local contractors handling its projects.
However, it has not been all gloom on the roads front. In the last eight years, the administration has tried to wriggle out of the infrastructure deficit by tackling issues of road construction and repair creatively. It established the Infrastructure Corporation of Nigeria (InfraCorp), in February 2021, with an initial capital of N1trillion, provided by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC). InfraCorp’s goal is to attract investment into Nigeria’s infrastructure sector, with a core focus on roads.
A year before, the federal government established the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), with a N14 trillion of debt capital. The PIDF, in 2020, invested over a $1 billion in three flagship projects: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Second Niger Bridge (both of which are slated to be completed this month), and the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway (with two of the three sections slated to be completed in May 2023). The year before, precisely January 25 2019, Buhari, vide Executive Order No7 of 2019, established the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme (RIDRITCS) with complete focus on meeting Nigeria’s motorable road needs. The scheme allows companies that are willing and are able to spend their own funds on constructing critical roads to recover their construction costs by paying reduced taxes over a period of time. Under this scheme, Fashola had announced some federal roads may be tolled to assist the federal government and its private sector partners recover their investments, but largely, the attraction is on tax cut for willing companies and emphasis had been on constructing more rigid roads that would justify the intendments of tax relief for public works carried out by such business concerns.
The Buhari administration said it was able to mobilise about N3 trillion committed by some companies for road projects across the six geo-political zones. Under the Executive Order 7, companies such as Dangote Group (which fixed Ojota-Oworonshoki-Oshodi-Apapa), MTN Plc (which is to fix Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway), BUA Group, NLNG, and NNPC Limited, had opted to mobilise resources to help fix some critical roads for tax cuts. These initiatives are apart from the public-private partnership initiative that the administration came up with under the Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI), which mobilised over N1 trillion of private investment into the development and maintenance of 12 roads amounting to 1,963km in length. This is further buoyed by more than N600 billion worth of Sukuk Bond raised since 2017 for more than 40 critical road projects connecting 10 states in five geo-political zones of the country.
Fashola, at a recent performance report, said the Sukuk has helped greatly in funding road construction across the country, lamenting more strides could have been achieved had the previous government not avoided it as an Islamic-oriented funding with negative consequences. According to the minister, “the sukuk is used to fund section II of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge, which has been completed.” Explaining further, the minister said; “the first thing we did when we came into power was to expand the budget on road infrastructure, and sought alternative sources of funding through Sukuk, and the Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme.”
Fashola listed the achievements of his ministry under Buhari’s government to include the completion and inauguration of 12 road projects covering about 896km, explaining that the government is executing 83 road rehabilitation projects in federal tertiary institutions across the country with 66 projects completed and 46 inaugurated. Celebrating the strides of his principal during the nation’s 60th anniversary, Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Malam Garba Shehu, had said the Buhari administration has attempted remedial work on 600 critical federal roads since 2015. For him, within the same space of time, the administration has done more than most of his predecessors despite other competing infrastructural funding needs. The administration’s overwhelming presence is everywhere and in all the six geopolitical zones, he insisted.
For an administration that desires to tackle all of the nation’s numerous challenges and achieve economic self-reliance and increased domestic output, the Buhari administration devised economically sound fiscal strategies to fund the redevelopment of various federal highways, including those nearing completion. A quality road network being the most critical component of a national multimodal transportation plan is the foundation of a thriving economy. Experts readily averred that good roads link up especially on the national socio-economic arteries, urban centres and hubs are enablers for citizens to move from one point to the other and perform everyday activities that would lead to the country’s prosperity. It is by the road that people earn a living, farm, or access other transportation modes like rail, air, and water. Essential social services such as education, healthcare, hospitality, community integration, neighbourhood security, religious and private interactions are majorly accessed by roads. A quality road network is, therefore, the mainstay of any thriving economy.
Nigeria’s surface roads, put at 195,000kms of which those categorised as federal roads make up 32,000km or 18 per cent, had steadily deteriorated in the years preceding the Buhari administration through a combination of official neglect, poor maintenance culture, and perhaps more fundamentally, the absence of a legal and policy framework for private sector participation in funding, management and maintenance of federal highways. Despite the recent drop in revenues due to lower oil prices and the aftershock of the COVID-19 shutdown, experts believe Nigeria’s economic potentials are still enormous.
Although the Buhari administration has often said that it is mindful of the pains the average Nigerian is passing through due to recession and the ravages of the global Coronavirus pandemic, it has nonetheless been resolute in continuing with its economic recovery plans, which have as a key component the rebuilding of national transport infrastructure. Many stakeholders commend the ceaseless fiscal and administrative stimulus that the administration has put into the timely completion of major roads and bridges across the six geopolitical zones of the country to stimulate economic growth.
Inside the ambitious 600 federal roads project
Some of the 600 on-going federal road projects whose completion will immediately impact economic activities include the Apapa-Oshodi-Oworonshoki Expressway, which is being reconstructed as a concrete road, for the first time since it was built 40 years ago, and awarded to Dangote Group for a tax cut. This vital economic gateway, which opens to Apapa Ports, can be likened to the nation’s spinal cord, the backbone of its import and export business. When this road is choked and vehicular traffic snarls envelope the metropolis, as it often does, the economy of Nigeria and, indeed that of the entire West African region, is effectively paralysed.
The Buhari administration is committed to reconstructing the Expressway to benefit national and regional economic development. Both the Apapa-Oshodi-Oworonshoki Expressway and the Bodo-Bonny Bridges and Road, (which was conceived in the 1980s, but actual construction started in 2017), were executed under the Executive Order 7 projects. Other projects being funded under PIDF include the Second Niger Bridge. Main construction for this vital gateway into the South-South and South East regions started in 2018, and completion is scheduled for 2023. There is also the reconstruction of the 375km Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Expressway and its transformation to a six-lane configuration; reconstruction of the Benin–Ofusu–Ore–Ajebandele–Sagamu Expressway; the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway, and the Kano-Maiduguri Expressways. The Loko-Oweto Bridge, linking Benue and Nasarawa states, an important interstate project started by the Jonathan administration, is being completed by President Buhari.
In 2017, the Buhari administration identified and marked out 63 roads across the country, including 44 federal highways. These roads, which linked up trade, commerce, port, and agricultural centres across the six geopolitical zones of the country, were classified under Critical Economic Routes and Agricultural Routes, and accorded budgetary priority. The roads include the Apapa/Tincan Port, NNPC Depot (Atlas Cove) to Mile 2 Accessed Road, Apapa-Oshodi Road, Third Mainland Bridge, Apapa/Tincan Island Port-NNPC Depot Access Road, Benin-Ofosu-Ore Ajebandele-Shagamu Road, Obajana Junction-Benin Road Phase 2: (Sections i-iv), Sapele-Ewu Road Sections 1&11, Second Niger Bridge, Onitsha-Enugu Expressway (Amansea-Enugu State Border), Yenegoa Road Junction-Kolo-Otueke-Bayelsa Palm and Bodo-Bonny Road with Bridge.
Also included are the Abuja-Lokoja Road Sections I & IV; Suleja-Minna Road Section 11; Kaduna Eastern Bypass; Kano-Maiduguri Road Section 1-1V; Hadejia-Nguru-Gashua-Bayamari Road and Kano Western Bypass; Odukpani-Itu-(Spur Ididep-Itam)-Ikot Ekpene Federal Highway Sections 1&11; Ikom Bridge; Enugu-Port Harcourt Dual Carriageway Sections i-iv; Calabar-Ugep-Katsina-Ala Road; Vandeikya-Obudu-Obudu Cattle Ranch Road; Oshegbudu-Oweto Road; Oju/Loko-Oweto Bridge with approach roads; and the Nassarawa-Loko Road. Others are the Kano-Katsina Road (Phase 1: Kano Town at Dawanau Roundabout to Katsina State Border); Sokoto-Tambuwal-Jega-Yauri Road; Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa-Bokani Road; Ilorin-Kabba-Obajana Road (Sections 1&11); Ibadan-Ilorin Road, Section11 (Oyo-Ogbomosho); Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan Dual Carriageway, Sections 1&11, and Lagos-Otta Road.
Others are the Zaria-Kano Road, Abuja-Lokoja Road (Sections i-iv), Ilorin-Jebba-Bokani Road, Ibadan-Ilorin Road (Sections `1&11), Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan Road (Sections1&11), Benin-Ofosu-Ore-Ajebandele-Shagamu Road, and Obajana-Benin Road (Sections i-iv). The Kaduna-Zaria Road, Otukpo Township Road, Kaduna-Katsina Road, Onitsha-Enugu Road (Section 1&11), Enugu-Port Harcourt Road (Sections i-iv), Calabar-Odukpani-Itu Road (Section 1), Calabar-Ugep-Katsina-Ala Road (Sections 1&11), Alesi-Ugup (Iyamoyung-Ugup) Road, Ogoja(Mbok Junction) Abuochichie Road, Kano-Maiduguri Road(Sections i-v), among others, were also among those listed. There is no doubt the completion of the reconstruction of these roads will heighten the tempo of national economic recovery and achieve one of the cardinal objectives of the Muhammadu Buhari Administration.
With a government determined to provide smooth and motorable roads, it is the hope that Nigeria will eventually achieve a mitigation of the wear and tear of vehicles, enhance the country’s socio-economic development, improve road safety, ensure smooth traffic, reduce travel time and traffic congestion, make for better connectivity in and around the federation. The movement of people and goods is also improving substantially, even if gradually. In this regard, Fashola said over 700 kilometres of roads spreading across 11 states in the country would be delivered to Nigerians.
Mr Fashola said NNPCL is committing N1.5 trillion to road projects located in Edo, Delta, Kano, Kaduna, Borno and Adamawa states. “The Federal Executive Council gave approval for the construction and rehabilitation of 11 roads totalling 737.242 kilometres in the sum of N1, 535, 154, 247, 234.48 under phase II of the NNPC tax credit scheme. Recall that in January this year, the council approved a memo for the NNPC to invest N1.9 trillion on our roads. That amount was then about 44 roads that had been awarded and the balance of those roads that had to go through procurement between then and now are the 11 that have now been approved by the council,” Mr Fashola said.
Fashola, said his mandate in the Buhari’s government is to help the government spend its funds judiciously on public infrastructure. Though he would claim he has done that to the best of his capacity, there still exists a huge gap across all the six geo-political zones that could keep the incoming administration very busy. But like in all sectors, the Buhari administration seems to have put in place structures to make rehabilitation, reconstruction and expansion of road infrastructure a lot easier than he met it.
