The Minister of State for Works, Ambassador Bashir Yuguda, has said Nigeria roads are now better than before.
The minister, who represented the Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, spoke at the inauguration of the Nigerian Institution of Surveyors’ (NIS) Tower in Lagos.
He said: “Nigerian roads are getting better. I drive from Benin-City to Lagos under four hours. I drive from Kano to Maiduguri half the time it could have taken me. Now the roads are getting better. One of the transport companies in Nigeria, ABC, made an advert that it has slashed its fares because the roads are getting better. The company said its maintenance cost is lower, their turnaround from one city to another is better. So, in recognition of that Nigerians can benefit from this.”
The surveyors’ tower, which was rehabilitated after the institution reclaimed its ownership at the expiration of the 20-year Build Operate and Transfer (BOT) agreement with HFP, the developer, Yuguda said, goes to show the visionary leadership of the professional body.
“Two decades ago, you had the idea of putting the prime land into BOT, which some people would not have thought of. You quietly settled for a tenant/landlord agreement which has worked,” he said.
He added: “We hope and pray that the best of things are yet to come. We are also here to tell other professional bodies that this is the best way to go.”
About N250million was said to have been spent on the construction of the building.
Ambassador Yuguda said if everybody thinks that the budget may work for everybody to develop, “certainly it will not work”. He added that there are a lot of competing demands on the government.
“So, people should be innovative enough in bringing out the best in them,” he said.
He continued: “Exactly what we are doing today is what the government is doing under Transformation Agenda. We have to show ingenuity, we have to show creativity and we have to show that as professionals, we add value to the system and this is value addition. I assure you that I will inform President Goodluck Jonathan what the NIS has done.”
The Federal Government, he said, is embarking on a 30-year integrated infrastructure master plan, which will begin this year.
“What we did at the National Planning Commission, because I’m supervising the ministry, was to develop National Integrated Infrastructure Master plan. The whole idea was to coordinate all the infrastructure into one integrated master plan so that there would be no duplication, there would be direction and ownership, and it is spaced; it is a 30-year master plan,” he added.
He said the president has directed that all projects should come under one umbrella. “That is what all we have done. I’m in the process of presenting it to the National Economic Council and later the National Executive Council and that is when the implementation starts. It is going to start in 2014. And in the first five years, we have lined up projects we want to achieve,” he said.
