Consider with me the following three theses:
First, infrastructural development is key to economic breakthrough even in an era of dwindling resources.
Second, Nigerian governments have not been unmindful of the importance of infrastructural development as evidenced by the various budgets and development plans since the beginning of the republic, and especially in the last 16 years.
Third, unfortunately, the terrible disease of impunity that has hitherto characterised government activities and projects, especially in the last dispensation, also afflicts contractors working for government on infrastructure, including especially federal roads. Thus even when the government has discharged its responsibilities and mobilised contractors with funds, nothing tangible gets done with contractors abscondingwith mobilisation funds, leaving projects uncompleted and in some cases unbegun.
The first thesis is uncontroversial and doesn’t really need justification as has been attested to by experts and confirmed by the experience of other nations. The United States is a good example of a nation that invested in infrastructure right from the beginning of its birth and maintained its dominance by reinvesting in infrastructure. Even during its most trying period at the depth of its economic depression, the visionary leaders of the US attacked the enemy and dug the nation out of economic doldrums with massive public work investment.
The link between infrastructural development and economic development is fairly straightforward. Though nations emerged from agricultural settlements, no nation can develop to its full potentials and take care of its population on the basis of subsistence agriculture alone. But for a successful revolution in agricultural development, a good network of roads is minimally essential for obvious reasons. So is a good system of irrigation. We cannot forget the need for power at least for the sustenance of irrigation and for the maintenance of a good storage system, which ensures food availability through the seasons. This is purely elementary. But we have not even got the elementary and rudimentary nature of the linkages right. Hence our predicament in the matter of sustainable development of agriculture even in the 21st century.
If we choose not to be in a rush to advance and therefore we limit ourselves to agriculture and its infrastructural needs, it is clear that we are far behind in the reconciliation of where we are with where we ought to be. We have land masses that remain largely uncultivated mainly because farmers are condemned to middle-age methods of farming and even when they endure the drudgery, they are faced with the daunting task of evacuating their harvests to urban markets and many of the produce perish in the process.
Second, our government is not unaware of the importance of infrastructure for economic advancement and national transformation. Our development plans in the 60s and 70s up until the mid-80s were meant to accelerate the pace of development with emphasis on infrastructure. Since 1999, there have been noticeable efforts in the same direction, culminating in the 2010 discussions between the African Development Bank Group (AfDB)and the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.
As reported by the Bank in its prepared report, the government of Nigeria requested the bank to “prepare a report on the state of infrastructure in the country.” Among others, the Bank noted that “investments in infrastructure are critical to advances in agriculture, which is one of the key pillars of the Nigerian economy, and human development, including the delivery of health and education services to the poor.” The Bank then provided an assessment of the status of infrastructure in the transport, power, information and communication technologies, and water and sanitation sectors. It prepared an action plan for the country to achieve the goals set by 2020. That was six years ago. Needless to add, we have hardly started the implementation of the plan.
One of the action plans with regard to the transport sector was that “about 145,000 km of the existing network (equal about 75 per cent of the total network) would be rehabilitated and selectively upgraded, including rehabilitation and upgrade of the tertiary network that serves rural communities. Some 7,993 km of existing federal primary and secondary roads will be dualised, with all of the primary roads completed and 1,685 km of the secondary roads in the federal network.” Due to space factor, I limit myself to just these two of the identified Action Plans.
Shortly after, in July 2012, the government tasked the National Planning Commission with the responsibility to coordinate the preparation of a National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan (NIIMP) for the country to be implemented over a period of 30 years. That coordination had hardly taken off before the government was sent packing.
Now to the third thesis. At a retreat organised by the presidency on the implementation of the plan, former President Jonathan himself zeroed in on one of the major reasons for the failure of all the efforts toward the development of infrastructure in Nigeria. He observed that greed and corruption were the twin evils that militate against the development of Nigeria. I make bold to suggest that contractor corruption and impunity and governmental connivance are at the center of the evils that befall Nigeria and have drawn it backwards since its birth as a nation, and especially since the beginning of the Fourth Republic.
Every year there is budget earmarked for road development, including reconstruction, rehabilitation, pavement, etc. of federal and state roads. However, in the most successful scenario, we may have a third of these partially implemented and none fully implemented. Not that the contractors are not funded. Usually, they and the monitoring authorities have a deal, which ensures that should the contractors abscond with the funds, they are not pursued or forced to complete the project for which they received funds. This is why abandoned projects litter our streets and the masses are suffering in silence. This is why we hardly see contractors punished for failure to discharge their contractual obligations even after receiving funds.
The Okeho-Iseyin Federal Road is a case study of an abandoned project six years after it was awarded in 2009 to a contractor (name withheld) for about N1 billion for the 30 km road. The stipulated completion time was SIX MONTHS! And we have the contractor to thank for having partially completed 8 km in SIX YEARS. Prior to this latest experience, there hadn’t been any good report on the performance of the Federal Government and the incompetent contractors that it decided to have handle the fixing of the road. For hardly had they completed the job than the road started disintegrating even before they packed they equipment.
In the current case, the ministry and its zonal office did not deem it necessary to sack the contractor company and in the last six years, it has been a frustrating experience of a most incompetent and inefficient execution of the project. The contractor has often abandoned the site such that one would conclude that the government had sacked him. Then he would reappear with an assembly of some old and dilapidated equipment that would suggest that it couldn’t be a Federal Government project. And yet, this is a billion Naira federal road rehabilitation project! The question is: why is an incompetent contractor handling a federal road? And why is the government not caring enough to ensure that its resources are not squandered and the people do not suffer undue neglect?
Last year, Governor Abiola Ajimobi moved to fix the road. But as word reached the contractor, he cunningly moved his equipment back to site. Shortly after, he disappeared. Three weeks ago, the contractor resurfaced again with piles of laterite on the road, another clever gimmick to hold on to the project and continue with its shoddy job or to avoid the scrutiny of the new Minister of Works known for his conscientiousness and spartan discipline. It is time to either terminate the contract and give it to a competent contractor or force its efficient and satisfactory completion. For apart from its internal developmental benefits, the road is a major portion of the Oyo-Iseyin-Okeho-Wasimi Road, which when fixed, will facilitate trade with our Benin Republic neighbours.
