The Nation Newspaper

Tag: maintenance

  • Maintenance vital to building sustainability, says don

    A university teacher, Mr Olumide Adenuga has said that lack of maintenance, among other factors have been responsible for serious wear and tear of buildings in the country.

    He said despite the huge amount of money spent in erecting iconic buildings, they rapidly deteriorate and dilapidate as a result of abandonment.

    Mr. Adenuga, who is a Professor of Building in the Faculty of Environmental Sciences, University of Lagos, spoke at the school’s inaugural lecture entitled “Building Maintenance: A Posteriori Culture in Nigeria-the Quest for Economic Sustainability”.

    He explained that the condition and quality of buildings demonstrates the level of prosperity in an area and also reflects the social values, behaviour and the past and present influences which give a community its unique character.

    Prof. Adenuga further argued that the operation and maintenance of buildings comprise activities that could stimulate capital and operating expenditures, which could, in turn, affects the nation’s economy.

    “It is unfortunate that most of the buildings and facilities (public and private) in Nigeria suffer maintenance neglects which result in huge economic loss.  These facilities, especially those belonging to the Federal Government continue to lie waste at various locations even when they could be converted to profitable economic assets that could generate income.

    “Citing Lagos State as a case study, it is disturbing that since the relocation of the country’s capital from Lagos State to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja in 1991, over 20 of the buildings which used to be the centre of economic activities of the Federal Government and its agencies have been abandoned,” he said.

    Some of these buildings, he stated, are the National Stadium  Surulere, the Federal Secretariat Complex,  Ikoyi, the NET Building Marina, the Defence House,  Lagos,  former National Assembly  Complex,  Tafawa Balewa Square,  former Supreme Court Building and others.

    “It is discouraging to observe that more attention is still given to new constructions than the maintenance of existing once with the unfortunate result that buildings are left to waste, deteriorate and decay at an alarming rate.  This unhealthy trend needs to be reversed urgently” he said.

    On how to reduce the cost of maintenance, he proffered that much should be done at the design stage as all elements of buildings deteriorate at a greater or lesser rate, depending on the design,  materials, methods of construction,  age and environmental conditions, use of the building and maintenance or management of the building.

    He said occupiers of buildings should be adequately educated on use property in a manner that will keep the building in good condition. This will facilitate preventive measures of maintenance. He also said occupiers of any building should report defects as soon as they are noticed for remedial actions to be taken early.

    He also noted that government should release buildings that are not utilised to private investors through concession or outright sale.

     

  • Airlines lose $1.5b yearly to maintenance, others

    African airlines lose over $1.5billion yearly to maintenance, repairs and overhaul of airlines outside the shores of the continent, it was learnt yesterday.

    The cost is incurred due to the absence of the facility in any part of Africa while there are only 48 aircraft operated by eight airlines in Nigeria, the Ag. Director-General, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), Engr. Chidi Izua, said.

    He spoke during the presentation of the Outline Business Case (OBC) Certificates for the Aviation Leasing Company (ALC) and the Maintenance, Repairs and Overhaul (MRO) to the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika.

    It is believed that the certification would enable Nigeria proceed to the procurement stage for the realisation of establishing both facilties in Nigeria.

    The government said if the facilities are established in Nigeria, the GDP currently contributed by the aviation sector would double.

    Lamenting the absence of the facilties and it’s importance in the continent, Izua said: “The MRO is the most important link in the aviation value chain as the major consideration in the industry is safety.

    “Considering the importance of the MRO, it is incomprehensible that none exist in the West African region, 98 years after the first aircraft landed in the country in (1920).

    “The lack of an MRO has had a negative impact on the survival of airlines in the country as airlines have struggled to maintain their fleet or stay in business for consistently long periods as seen in other climes, due to the exorbitant cost of maintenance that isn’t available locally and the time it takes to fly the aircrafts for checks.

    “Our review of the CBC presented a compelling case for the establishment of an MRO in Nigeria as the demand forecast study undertaken presented an assurance of a market that remains unserved locally, as more than half of the US3 billion annual expenditure by African airlines on maintenance is taken outside the continent.”

    Commenting also on the absence of ALC, Izua said about 70 per cent of commercial aircraft in Nigeria are leased and 50 per cent of the fleet globally.

  • Road maintenance: How far can tolling go?

    Road maintenance: How far can tolling go?

    The odds favour the return of the tolling regime, the Federal Government believes. The reintroduction of toll plazas will assist the government in sourcing funds for roads repair and maintenance. But will this be the needed elixir be enough to generate the huge revenue make all federal roads smooth all-year-round? ADEYINKA ADERIBIGBE asks in this report.

    The stage is set for the Federal Government to reintroduce the tolling regime on federal highways. But motorists have nothing to fear as Power, Works & Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola assured that tolling will not return until all federal roads have been reappeared.

    “We are only waiting for the completion of these roads before we introduce toll gates,” Fashola told the Senate when he appeared before the National Assembly last week.

    To him, the extant laws still empowers the government to introduce tolls. And government will be tolling the roads in order to get the needed funds for their maintenance.

    Despite the whopping N1.8 trillion spent of federal highways by the former Goodluck Jonathan’s administration before he left office in 2015, the roads (more than half of them) belonging to the federal government are bad.

    An investigation carried out on the state of federal roads across the six geo-political zones by The Nation showed that less than 30 per cent of the road network across the country is passable. The worse hit region is the Southeast where no road was rehabilitated by the previous administration. The Federal Government claimed to have committed N345 billion to road repairs in the region.

    Though official figures remained sketchy, experts claimed that road repairs gulped N4 trillion in the last 16 years. Successive administrations since Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, continued to commit the tax payers’ money to fix the roads with little or nothing to show for the various interventions.

    Fruitless interventions

    For instance, between 1996 and 1998, the Federal Government, through the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), spent about N500 billion to build and refurbish all the highways. In 2000, erstwhile Works Minister Chief Anthony Anenih sunk another N350 billion under an intervention programme tagged: “Operation 500 roads.” The programme was designed for the upgrade of 500 ‘critical’ federal roads across the country.

    Two years after, the Federal Government came up with another intervention, which brought about the creation of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA), to carry out an all-year-round maintenance on federal roads across the country.

    Despite the frequency of such interventions, which has spanned two decades, more than 80 per cent of roads remain in deplorable condition.

    Records showed that the Federal Government’s roads alone had gulped over 70 per cent of the nation’s total capital expenditures over the last 20 years.

    Yet, only 34,123 of the 193, 200 kilometres of road networks nationwide belong to the federal. The states and local government areas account for 30,500 kilometres and 129,577 kilometres respectively.

    The high costs of providing durable road network have placed the burden on government as sole financier of road infrastructure.

    Since 1962, budgetary allocations to road architecture have been on the rise. The road sector got 19 per cent of total public capital outlays between 1962–1968 (the civil war era), while 23 per cent; 22 per cent; and 15 per cent were allocated in the post war era of 1970–1974; 1975-1980 and 1981–1985 (corresponding to the various National Development Plans).

    The road transport also continued to receive over half of the total public sector capital outlay, with road infrastructure receiving the lion’s share of 58 per cent; 67 per cent; 71 per cent and 60 per cent of the transport sector’s share during the period, while rail, air and water, shared the remaining allocations along 42 per cent; 33 per cent; 29 per cent and 40 per cent in the first, second, third and fourth development plans respectively.

    Between 1960 and 2009, the transport sector contributed between 1.9 and 5.5 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the country. Road transport alone accounted for over 60 per cent in the 1960s; over 80 per cent in the 1980s and over 90 per cent in the 1990s and 2000s.

    Since independence, roads accounted for over 70 per cent of passengers and freight movements, and over 95 per cent of the goods to and from the seaports.

    As at 2007, only 35 per cent of the federal highways were rated as being in a good or very good condition. The last assessment of the Federal Draft Green Paper for Consultation II Roads, carried out by FERMA in March 2011, revealed that only 26.5 per cent of federal roads passed the integrity test.

    But, despite the deplorable condition of the roads, the traffic volumes have consistently been on the rise.

    According to a traffic data on federal roads, about five per cent of the roads carry over 10,000 vehicles per day (vpd); 19 per cent carry between 6,000 –10,000 vpd, while 26 per cent and 51 per cent of the road carry between 4,500 – 6,000 vpd and less than 4,500 vpd.

    The density of traffic on the road, with its attendant wear and tear informed the need for thinking out of the box to frontally confronting funding of road maintenance.

    Recession compounded the problems for the government as rooftop foreign exchange became a nightmare.

    Fashola argued that whereas the Ministry of Works alone, requires N2 trillion to maintain all federal roads in 2016, (and perhaps yearly), only N433.4 billion was appropriated to the three ministries under his jurisdiction last year.

    According to Fashola, the options before Nigerians, is to choose between fire and a deep sea. He told his audience that the choice is either to pay for good road network, or refuse, and be buffeted all round by grossly dilapidated roads.

    The incontestable fact is that the President Muhammadu Buhari inherited bad roads as most of the 193,200 kilometres roads network are crying for attention.

    To avoid the initiative being steeped in the murky waters of politics, government may conclude all rehabilitation works by the first quarter of 2018, and kick off test run by the second quarter 2, next year. The minister hinted that the private sector would be invited to manage the facilities.

    Fashola said that tolls would be introduced in 38 points across the country. Though the exact locations where the new toll plazas would be located have not been identified, Fashola stated that the government may stick to the old locations.

    What this means invariably is that each state capital will have one toll plaza, with Abuja or Lagos having two. Conservatively, if each toll plaza makes N1 million monthly, the government is projecting to rake in N38 million/month, and about N54.7 billion/year. In two years, N1 trillion could be set aside to carry out maintenance.

    A public affairs analyst, Lekan Shote, who lauded the idea behind the return of the toll gates, hinged his reservations on the erosion of the people’s purchasing power.

    According to him, just like the fuel increase regimes worsened the people’s living conditions, the toll imposition will further recess the people’s income and increase the cost of doing business for most struggling Nigerians, battling with a meager income.

    Those who will be worse hit by the toll reintroduction are the ordinary people, especially, traders, as transporters will eventually pass the cost to them.

    Transportation and logistics experts insist that nothing is wrong with collection of tolls on any road, be it federal, state or local government. The snag, they argue, is that the people’s disposable income have been badly impacted by recession that introducing toll at this time would be adding to their misery.

    Shote likened the toll fee (road tax), may further tighten the net against the nation’s huge members of the informal sector, who still escape the tax net. “If you do not pay income tax or company tax, you will at least pay road toll indirectly as long as you ply the roads or buy goods freighted on the roads.”

    He blamed Buhari’s macroeconomic policies which has eroded Nigerians’ earning capacity.

    But, Dr. Joseph Shojobi, a foremost transportation systems engineer and planner, said nothing better outside tolling, lies in the horizon if Nigerians are to enjoy quality roads with better markings and signage.

    Shojobi, who retired 50 years ago from the University of Lagos as a senior lecturer, claimed Nigerians loses N80 billion daily as vehicular occupational cost as a result of the state of the nation’s roads.

    He served as Chairmen of the post war Federal Roads Advisory Committee under Alhaji Femi Okunnu as the Federal Commissioner for Works & Transport. The retired don described as “government’s most unpardonable gaffe,” the cancellation of toll plaza by the Obasanjo administration.

    Blaming the deplorable conditions of the roads on the stoppage of the tolls in 2002, Shojobi said that despite the outcry that the plazas were becoming a cesspool of corruption, the revenue accrued from the plazas was close to a billion Naira as at 2000, and would have outstripped a trillion by 2016.

    Quoting figures, Shojobi said the toll collection, as at 2000, was N569 million, N742 million in 2001 and N779 million in 2002.

    He said: “If this revenue had been allowed to continue to grow, we would have gone pass N1 trillion, and we would not be cash strapped in fixing the roads.”

    Shojobi said that successive governments have continued to strive against shrinking revenue in confronting the bad state of the roads headlong.

    He said series of interventions such as the introduction of petrol tax, on which series of price increments over the years have been pegged, necessitating the establishment of the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA), or the establishment FERMA, to handle regular maintenance of roads have continued to fail due to paucity of funds.

    The storm ahead

    Though Fashola has assured that much of the details behind the eventual reintroduction of the toll regime were in the works, Nigerians have also taken the government to task to come up with more disclosures that would assist in planning their activities and living.

    One of the very basic information already released by the government was that the new plazas would be introduced at the old locations, which obviously would be along the government’s approved corridor. But for states like Lagos, achieving such may increase the burden of millions of people living even up to kilometre 50, on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

    “For most of us living at Warewa, Magboro, Ofada, Aseese, Arepo, Mowe, Ibafo and other sundry boundary communities on that axis, the news was a bombshell as it would add to our financial burden on both sides of the carriage,” Anthony Umeh, a regular commuter said.

    Another concern identified by regular users of the road is that the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, for instance, now provides home to no fewer than a dozen religious institutions, many of which also offers estate facilities to their faithful, who lives therein while they work in the city.

    Umeh and Godwin Oku, a commercial bus driver who operates the Mowe-Berger route, said it would be nice if the government can relocate the plaza to a little after the Redemption Camp. They said that with living and commercial activity already encroaching on the old toll gate at the Ojo end of the highway, retaining the plaza there will not serve the purpose for which it was meant to serve.

    Patrick Adenusi of Safety Without Borders said one of the bane of Nigeria’s development is policy summersault. He recalled that all stakeholders rose against the cancellation of the toll system by the Obasanjo administration, but that lack of political will stood against its immediate reversal by successive governments, “until the reality of an empty purse went beyond a mere headache or rhetoric to threaten the very heart of governance.”

    He said had the late Musa Yar’Adua or Goodluck Jonathan administrations demonstrated the will, the short-sighted decision taken on suspicion of sleaze or corruption for which anti-corruption agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Offences Commission (ICPC) and Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) were later created, Nigeria would not have slipped into becoming the third country with the most unsafe roads in the world.

    Adenusi said the toll system being contemplated by the government is part of the elements that is embedded in the new Road Trust Fund Bill, which has passed its second reading, and has moved to committee stage for further fine-tuning.

    He said while tolling may be a very sure way of bailing the nation out of its poor road maintenance profile, transportation system experts must be involved in building a sustainable strategy in maintaining the cluster of roads in the country.

    Like Adenusi, Shojobi listed vehicle count, traffic density and travel pattern as factors that must be considered in coming up with locations where the plazas should be sited.

    Shojobi said so many variables, among them; new trends in transportation patterns, population, vehicle density, migration, and other factors, may have adversely affected the old locations, which may make siting the new ones on same spots unprofitable.

    “I have no doubt that the government would employ experts in coming up with various engineering solutions now that the government is looking at the various strategies to help it resolve its maintenance quagmire,” he said.

    The scholar pointed out the need for a review of road classifications in the country. A decision that may also inform the reclassification of some roads hitherto classified as Trunk B as a Trunk A, while some Trunk C roads could actually have been serving as Trunk B as a result of its vehicular density.

    Viewing the nature of maintenance of the nation’s roads, Shojobi suggested that roads should be broadly classified into two major classes as the 774 local governments across the country has proven too weak to be saddled with road maintenance.

     

    Other revenue spots

    Shojobi identified insurance premiums, import duty tariffs, vehicle assessment tax, MOT certification and other other road related taxes and levies as some sources the government can explore to generate more money to maintain its roads.

    He said corporate organisations, as well as individuals, may also be invited to assist in rehabilitating any road with provisions for adequate incentives to recoup their investments.

    Experts added that if exploited, the toll regime may be become the needed elixir to extricate the roads from of neglect and dilapidation.

    For instance, Shojobi insisted that the collectable revenue should be put into a sinking fund under the administration of an independent agency.

    From the fund, the agency which should compose of incorrigible Nigerians should embark on the allocation of funds for any classes of roads across the country.

    Reminiscing on the impact of such an agency in the past – the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) in the rehabilitation of all classes of roads across the country, Shojobi said that such an agency should be in charge of administering the fund on behalf of Nigerians.

    Describing roads as a national and an international asset linking communities and countries, Shojobi said that the time has come for Nigerians to accept the reality of paying to finance its maintenance.

    “Everybody want to own a bit of the road but it is a national asset. As a national asset, it must be maintained regularly if we must continue to get the best value from its usage. As the people pay for the use of electricity or even water supply, or the use of gas, they hardly considered road as a resource worth paying for. Nobody thinks of paying for the use of the road. So, we end up abusing our little space on it. All of that would change if we begin to exploit the various opportunities that we could get by getting the best mileage of these roads which are our commonwealth. We should begin to pay for the use of the roads and the best place to start is to by introducing the toll regime,” Shojobi added.

     

     

  • Towards a road maintenance regime

    On May 31, the acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, granted permission to the Lagos State government to embark upon a total reconstruction of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Road from Oshodi in Lagos. He was responding to the argument presented by the Lagos State government on the issue, the core of which is that the “the road linking Oshodi to the International Airport…is a national embarrassment. In the spirit of the regeneration and urbanisation that this administration has set out to achieve, we believe strongly that the image that is exhumed by the decadence of that road must be repaired and we took it upon ourselves to appropriate the 2017 budget that the House of Assembly should approve the total reconstruction of the Airport Road from Oshodi to the International Airport”.

    But, on May 25, the House of Representatives passed through the second reading the bill seeking to set out conditions to guide state governments which intended to rehabilitate federal roads with the intent to get reimbursed. What became clear as the debate wore on was the concern that the federal government is “currently indebted to states to the tune of over N400 billion” and how this is traceable to absence of laid down regulations to guide the execution of such projects, thereby leading to abuse of standards and procedures. A few months before that, Babatunde Fashola, the Minister for Power, Works and Housing, had said that the federal government was at home with reimbursing state governments that repaired federal roads provided they followed the due process.

    While the case the Lagos State government took to the federal government signposts what one can call the problem of the ‘distance’ between federal roads and the federal ownership, the concerns expressed in the House of Representatives as well as the conditionality conveyed in the works minister’s reservation speaks to a crisis of managing the ‘distance’ problem.

    Obviously to reinforce and reify federalism, the federal ownership of roads scattered far away in the states came about. But, in the process, what seems a contradiction especially as it refers to maintenance has emerged. That contradiction refers to the fact the federal government which owns the roads is an Abuja affair as against the situation whereby the people who use the roads are in the states. When and how does the federal government know that the roads have become deplorable and due for maintenance or reconstruction? Clearly, this is what the argument brought to the federal government by the Lagos State government reveals. However, this has to be matched unto the fears and concerns of the legislature and that of the minister.

    Before 1999, there was, to a great extent, a framework for maintaining or managing federal roads in Nigeria. Whether it was maintenance or reconstruction, it was handled by a section of the Federal Ministry of Works. That has been the regime since 1960, with varying degree of efficiency and effectiveness. Then there was the onset of crisis, ranging from dwindling allocation of resources to the ministries, the diversion of such funds via different forms of corrupt practices and general laxity across the system.

    From 1999, many governors explored an additional approach of making the case for reconstruction of specific federal roads that had become deplorable directly to the President. The requests were usually that they be authorised to repair and be refunded subsequently by the federal government. It worked well in many cases but it signalled that a problem was emerging in terms of a ‘distance’ between the roads and its real owner which is Abuja. There could have been  no better acknowledgment of the crisis in question than the creation of the Federal Road Maintenance Agency, (FERMA) in 2002. Fifteen years after that, we appear to be back to square one as borne out by the concerns expressed by key officials cutting across the legislature, the federal executive and the state governments as cited above, leaving us with a case of what is to be done?

    In this regard, the approach of the House of Representatives would look adequate. That is having a law which sets out the parameters by which states can repair federal roads that have started going bad before it reaches embarrassing status. In the age of sophisticated construction technology, this is achievable. It is possible for a mechanism backed by law to guarantee a uniform standard in the quality of work done on federal roads by state governments. Such an arrangement solves the problem of ‘distance’ earlier referred to. And it is a problem worth solving. Spending so much to open a federal road only to fail to maintain it till it no longer serves the purpose is not only wasteful, it is lack of collective discipline.

    But, seconding a mechanism which literarily cedes the maintenance of federal roads to state government invites us to also think about and come up with a mechanism for mapping and boosting federal government presence in the states. Law is a good instrument. But the logic of federalism has a different demand in this instance. Federalism everywhere requires the presence of the national government in physical terms. There must be that presence so that the idealism of federalism does not clash with the realism of ethnicity and other centrifugal tendencies. This is a major point in federalism in the African context where state and nation-building have been largely very conflictual arising from perceptions of exclusion and marginalisation.

    One way of assuaging such feelings and under cutting conflicts associated with it is the reification of the state in the far flung corners of a mega state such as Nigeria. In other words, road networks have a symbolism that is as powerful if not more powerful than their functional essences in our context. That symbolism cannot be served by parcelling the responsibility for management of federal roads to legal, technicist mechanisms which anybody or system can supervise. It is necessary and critical that the federal government constructs, reconstructs and rehabilitates all its roads across Nigeria on its own terms and by its own standards. Doing so has a unifying impact that cannot be quantified in numerical or cash terms.

    In the Second Republic, this was part of what the idea of Gubernatorial Liason Officers was to achieve – the muscular and qualitative presence of the federal authority in every state. Unfortunately, the idea went off course as is typical in Nigerian politics. The substance was lost while the ephemeral dimension of it was celebrated. In the end, the confusion and disagreement over it transformed the idea into a conflictual one. It has not been reinstated ever again because it has got a bad image. But time and space changes meaning or should change meaning. Without advocating for a same concept, there is something that recommends a clear means or mechanism for mapping and enhancing federal presence in the states even when, for practical reasons, we formally cede maintenance of federal roads to state governments. The something in question goes beyond roads to other aspects of presence. In an age when federal presence is the dragging fire of heated claims and counter claims of marginalisation, this is something worth thinking about. The shift to that level of depth and seriousness would not be possible if we remain prisoners of the issues we ought no more to be splitting hairs over after 57 years of independence.

     

    • Chief Lawani, a businessman and philanthropist, was Deputy-Governor of Benue State.

  • Logic of roads construction and maintenance

    The Federal Roads maintenance Agency (FERMA) placed advertisements in The Nation of Tuesday May 9 apparently to demonstrate to those of us who are asking if the agency has folded up or has been wound up by the federal government that created it that it is alive. This agency seems to exist in the minds of those who created it and in the minds of the hordes of civil servants earning their living without doing anything to justify the salaries being paid to them. Even the advertisement referred to is full of lies.

    The agency claims to be rehabilitating Ife-Ibadan “Express way”. I travel on this road every week and I can confirm no work has been done on this road. In fact, the approach to Osun River Bridge near Asejire is so bad that a few vehicles have plunged into the river because of the bad approach to the bridge. The road from Ikire to Ilesha is hardly motorable. I also noticed that what the agency calls South-west zone apparently does not include Ondo and Ekiti states whose federal roads have been abandoned and the people there left to their own fate and yet those neglected two states produce the bulk of the cocoa Nigeria still exports and from which some billions of dollars are earned annually.

    I recently travelled from Lagos to Sagamu following the blockade of the Lagos-Ibadan express way as a result of religious activities on the express way. I was sad about what I saw on that road. It is perhaps correct to call the “road “a bush path. Driving on the road was like driving on the moon. Yet this was the first road the British constructed in Nigeria. I saw thousands of trailers and other kinds of vehicular contraptions whose drivers took their lives in their hands to drive through the road. It took me five hours to ply a road of perhaps 60 kilometres. I kept asking myself – where is the federal government? Where are Lagos and Ogun state governments?  This Ikorodu-Sagamu road is so strategic to the economy of not only the South-west but the whole country. It is not just the economy that this road is vital to; it is also strategic in defence consideration. What if Lagos suffered a sea invasion and it was necessary to move troops from the hinterland to the coast in case the enemy blocks the express way?

    The major power generating station of Egbin is along this route. Sagamu is a major cement producing hub, necessitating movement of huge articulated trucks to and from Lagos for construction.  Ikorodu itself is a putative port waiting for development. There is an army barracks on the road as well and Ikorodu area has witnessed incessant attacks and challenge by terrorists in recent times. If one may say the area is part of the Niger Delta which is increasingly becoming the soft under belly of Nigeria. If all these are not enough to attract government attention, there are innumerable small factories of iron and steel makers converting used and discarded vehicles into useable iron implements. There are also secondary and tertiary institutions in the axis.

    Planning roads construction and maintenance should not be done haphazardly or merely on federal character basis but on its utility value to the economy and security of the nation. I know our resources are limited but this is why there must be some kind of rationalization in the use of these resources. I lived in Germany for about five years and as many people know, Germany has the best network of roads in the world. The famous Autobahn (express roads) run from north to south and from east to west. They were largely constructed like their old railways to move troops from east to west and vice versa to confront their enemies on two fronts. Adolph Hitler may conveniently be forgotten by the Germans and the whole world, but he left a legacy of these roads and the small affordable people’s cars (Volkswagen) to ply them. Walter Ulbricbht, the communist leader of East Germany (DDR) came up with the plastic car the “Trabant “in a miserable mimicry of the NAZI dictator. No one can deny that the efficient transportation network of Germany is a major factor in the economic miracle Germany witnessed since the end of the Second World War.

    The point I am trying to make is that roads construction reflect a strategist worldview and goals he hopes to achieve and not just constructing roads as social welfare scheme.

    We need to take a holistic view of our road network and seriously plan what we hope to achieve. I will give a few examples .There is a need to have four arterial roads running from north to south in this country. One road should run from Sokoto through Kotangora to Kaiama, Iseyin, and Abeokuta to the port of Badagry. Another road should run from Kano to Kaduna, Abuja, Lokoja, Okene to Benin.  Another should run from Abuja to Minna, Mokwa, Ilorin, Ibadan, Lagos while the fourth should run from Maiduguri to Yola, Jalingo, Makurdi, Ogoja to Calabar.

    Then there is a need for an East-West road from Lagos, Sagamu, Ijebu-ode, Benin, Asaba, Onitsha, Enugu, Aba, Port Harcourt. There is also a need for a coastal road from Lagos through Igbokoda, Warri, Yenagoa, Port Harcourt, terminating in Calabar. This may appear a gigantic order but it is always better to plan big. In China, the country initially relied on harnessing its huge human resources rather than its technological know-how to build roads, dams and houses. I do not see why with a serious government, Nigeria cannot do the same.

    We are told that we have a population of 180 million people. Of course, I remain sceptical about this apparently exaggeratedly fabricated figure! To challenge the demographic cheaters, those who inflate population of their states should be asked to mobilize such population figures for development. The factor of economic necessity rather than the nebulous federal character determining what roads to construct and maintaining should be paramount. If the federal government were to stick to this kind of strategic conception and planning, then roads construction and maintenance will begin to make sense.

    Other feeder roads will have to be devolved into the zonal authorities in a hopefully restructured Nigeria with devolved resources and responsibilities.  But in the meantime, something has to be done to fix roads that are vital to economic recovery. I do not see what will be wrong if Lagos and Ogun states governments were to collaborate in fixing this Sagamu – Ikorodu road and then jointly billing the federal government or getting private entrepreneurs in to reconstruct the road and toll it.  This terrible state of most roads in Nigeria would have to be addressed as a matter of urgency because as I write, people are dying on these dilapidated roads.

    This road master plan should go hand in hand with a new railway age in Nigeria in which road transportation should not be the major way of moving people and goods around the country. There is no major developing country that depends on one mode of transportation. If we are aspiring to be one of the 20 biggest economies in the world, we cannot be enduring this primitive and almost primordial transportation system that even our grandparents would recognize especially the fact that our roads follow the same footpaths established by our illiterate ancestors.

  • Expert advises drivers on vehicle maintenance

    Ogun State Chief Vehicle Inspection Officer Gbenga Ademeyin has advised drivers of heavy duty vehicles to have enough concentration, anticipation and self-discipline while on the wheel.

    He made the plea at one-day workshop organised by the Sren Chemical Limited and Polymer Packaging Limited for their fleet and forklift operators at the companies’ premises at Sango, Ogun State.

    He was accompanied by the Ota Zonal Commander, Paul Kehinde Osukoya and Head of Operation and Southwest Coordinator Taofeeq Babalola.

    He said having a good attitude, skills, knowledge, enough concentration and anticipation are very essential for drivers and operators to enable them to avoid accidents.

    He urged drivers or operators to cultivate the spirit of maintenance of their vehicles, adding that a good driver or operator must be able to detect mechanical fault and have little knowledge of solving it.

    Ademeyin said maintenance is the act of keeping a vehicle in good shape and in good working condition. He said this can be done through inspection, testing engines of vehicles, servicing or replacement of parts/fluids.

    He said regular maintenance is very essential as it guarantees the safety, reliability, durability, longevity and comfort of all vehicles.

    He appealed to the operators to always embark on preventive maintenance. He said a good operator must not wait until an automotive part finally failed before replacing it, saying some vehicle parts are to be replaced frequently to avoid major damage or for safety purposes.

    The Chief Executive Officer of Sren Chemical Limited and Polymer Packaging Limited Mr Taiwo Tijani said the company organised the training to enable their drivers/operators to have adequate knowledge that would guarantee their safety while on the wheel. He noted that no amount of money spent on the training could be compared with human lives.

    He said the company frequently invites fire service commission to train members of staff on fire safety precautions. He added that safety and welfare of members of staff are more important to the management.

    The Ota Zonal Commander Osukoya, urged Standard Organisation of Nigeria (SON), National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and other regulatory agencies to put more efforts to their screening and inspection duties to ensure that no sub-standard goods are imported into the country.

    He noted that about 40 per cent of motor spare parts, tyres and electrical/electronic appliances imported into Nigeria are fakes.

    He also said the agencies should block all loopholes used by unscrupulous elements to smuggle fake/substandard products into the country, stating that substandard products constituted hazard to public health, lives and property.

    He added that the economy of countries producing or manufacturing sub-standard goods will be progressing while Nigerian economy will continue to dwindle if the loopholes were not blocked.

    He appealed to the agencies to ensure that proper tests and screening of goods imported into the country were carried out, saying Nigeria cannot continue to tolerate senseless destruction of lives and property of the citizens on the roads as a result of use of tyres and motor spare parts that are fake, expired or non-conducive to our environment.

    He maintained that many families have become victims of road crashes and other related disasters as a result of use of fake/expired tyres, motor spare parts, including electrical/electronic products.

    He urged the Federal Government to woo manufacturing companies that have left the country back and help reduce tariffs on imported goods.

    He appealed to the government to seriously deal with anyone caught violating the laws on importation.

  • Sustaining the tempo of road maintenance in Lagos

    Sustaining the tempo of road maintenance in Lagos

    The Lagos State Public Works Corporation has stepped up its road maintenance activities across the state, making roads better. MIRIAM EKENE OKORO reports.

    The administration of Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has scored high in its effort at improving the infrastructural development especially in the area of construction and rehabilitation of roads network in Lagos State.

    But inadequate maintenance of this infrastructure in the past has left some roads in deplorable condition.

    Considering the situation, the Lagos State Public Works Corporation in 2010 intensified effort in its road maintenance work a situation that has improved the harrowing experience residents go through daily plying the roads.

    Taking off with just two tractors and a pay loader, the agency has gradually increased its equipment fleet to more than 60 heavy duty and medium equipment, with the objective of delivering better road facilities for Lagosians.

    Executive Chairman of the Corporation, Mr. Gbenga Akintola, explained that the Lagos State Government strengthened its approach to road maintenance and rehabilitation in order to make impact on almost all parts of the state, either in the urban centres or suburbs.

    He said the state government had built required capacity for road maintenance, adding that interlocking paving stone was incorporated into the road maintenance approaches employed by the corporation as a way of making roads constructed in water-prone areas or places with severe drainage challenges last longer.

    He added that the establishment of two additional asphalt production plants was geared towards expanding its maintenance activities to efficiently cover the nooks and crannies of Lagos.

    These two asphalt plants located in Imota (Ikorodu Axis) and Ajido (Badagry Axis) of the state have production capacity of 160 tons of Asphalt per hour.

    The Chairman noted that while Imota plant has already been commissioned by the Governor in February 2014,that of Badagry is presently waiting commissioning, even though it has started full operation since December 2014.

    •Officials of the Lagos State Public Works, working on some roads
    •Officials of the Lagos State Public Works, working on some roads

    The Imota plant is expected to take care of no fewer than 420 roads located in Ikorodu, Epe, Ibeju-Lekki, Ikorodu and part of Eti-Osa Local government  areas, while that of Badagry is to cater for over 400 roads in Ojo, Amuwo-Odofin, Ajeromi-Ifelodun and part of Alimosho Local Government areas.

    He explained the benefits of the new asphalt plant, saying it was situated in Imota for strategic reasons.  “Asphalt has a lot of heat. When the heat is lost or brought to a particular level, the asphalt will no longer be useful. It cakes up and becomes useless, thereby leading to loss of resources in term of cash and time.”

    On fixing and replacement of manhole cover, Akintola said “LSPWC was not involved in fixing of manhole covers and gratings. However, due to public outcry on the danger posed by removal and vandalisation of the steel-made manhole covers and gratings by some unscrupulous persons, the corporation researched into and introduced a new type made of recycled plastic which would be of zero market value and thereby dissuade those who usually remove them to sell at the steel market from doing so.”

    He explained that so far, the corporation has fixed 591 manhole covers and grating adding that replacement of 492 others is currently ongoing in the third phase.

    One unique features that has helped the corporation achieve its objective is the fact that it was reengineered and equipped to carry out its functions day and night, at weekends and even during public holidays.

    “This new orientation helps it maximize the dry season when road maintenance work can be easily carried out without inhibitions from rain. It also allows for emergency operations on road defects that pose serious threat to life. Especially with night operations, traffic jam that usually characterize roads that are being worked on during the busy hours of the day can be easily avoided, thereby reducing the pain on Lagosians” he said

    He also informed that from sometime in 2012, the government, having beefed up the capacity of LSPWC,  began to assign certain roads to the Corporation for full scale construction, involving drainage work, road surfacing, culverts as well as installation of street lighting facilities and lane marking.

    “This has been of huge benefit to tax payers as such works are done via direct labour approach, thereby helping government to cut cost significantly.”

    He listed some of the roads done under such arrangement  to include  Emmanuel Kolawole Street (Somolu), Soluyi Street ( Kosofe), Ladipo Kuku, Allen (Ikeja), Oba Adeboyega (Epe), Oshundairo Street (Agege), Oluodo Road ( Ikorodu) and  Jamiu Alli Balogun (Apapa) amongst others.

    To sustain what has been achieved, Akintola added that the corporation in the last five years increased the awareness of members of the public on habits that lead to avoidable damage to roads.

    “The programme is three-faced, featuring media campaign on radio, television and newspapers, the roadstar comics and cartoons focusing on school children and the monitoring and enforcement activities.

    “Those efforts have helped to achieve to an extent, behavioural change as regards how Lagosians use the road, thereby making the corporation’s maintenance work to last longer. The high point of this is that over 30 persons were brought before the magistrate in 2014 and made to pay fines for various offences on activities that can lead to road damage” he said.

  • Reforming local government for efficiency

    Reforming local government for efficiency

    The functions of local government as spelt out in Section 7(5) of the constitution is as follows:

    • Consideration and making of recommendations to the state commission on economic planning or any similar body on economic development of the state, particularly sin so far as the area of authority of the council and of the state are affected;

    • Collection of rates, radio and television licenses;

    • Establishment and maintenance of cemeteries, burial grounds and homes for the destitudes;

    • Licensing of bicycles, trucks (other than mechanically propelled trucks), canoes, wheel barrows and carts;

    • Establishment, maintenance and regulation of markets, motor parks and public conveniences;

    • Construction and maintenance of roads, streets, drains, and public highways, parks, open spaces, or such public facilities as may be prescribed from time to time by the House of Assembly of a state;

    • Naming of roads and streets and numbering of houses;

    • Provision and maintenance of public conveniences and refuse disposal;

    • Registration of births, deaths and marriages;

    • Assessment of privately-owned houses or tenements for the purpose of levying such rates as may be prescribed by the House of Assembly of a state, and

    • Control and regulation of out-door advertising and hoarding, movement and keeping of pets of all dispensations, shops and kiosks, restaurants and other places for sale of food to the public and laundries.

    In addition, local governments are also expected to work hand in hand on the provision and maintenance of primary education, development of agriculture and natural resources and provision and maintenance of health services.

    Instead of performing these functions, many local government chairmen nowadays neglect them and engage in dubious empowerment programmes to cover up their non-performance of these constitutional roles.

    Questions have however, been raised about the economic viability of the councils. This is debatable. Some local governments in the urban centres have capacity to generate substantial internally generated revenue that can assist them in the discharge of their developmental functions. In the same vein, there are councils in remotest parts of the country with little or nothing to fall back to, except the federal allocation.

    Nigeria is a federal state. According to Prof. K. C. Wheare, federalism connotes “the method of dividing powers so that “general” and “regional” governments are each, within a sphere, c0-ordinate and independent”. This universally accepted proposition presupposes that, in federalism, only two centres of authority; the central and state governments, are recognised. Therefore, labeling the council as another tier of government is contentious. It must be assumed that the abuse of the powers of control over the councils by the state and federal government compelled the agitation for an increased autonomy for councils.

    Crisis between state and local governments permeate the inter-governmental relationship. Across the federation, between 2007 and 2006, council chairmen and governors were at loggerheads over illegal deduction of council funds by the states, with governors threatening to sack chairmen who raised serious objection. For example, former Ekiti Central local government chairman, Hon. Taye Fasubaa, cried out that he was being victimised for objecting to the diversion of council funds and illegal deductions by the governor. In 2012, when President Jonathan suggested that the Joint State/Council Account (JAC) should be abrogated and local governments should receive its allocations directly from the federal purse without recourse to the governors, the suggestion did not go down well with the councils.

    In recent times, chairmen whose name have appeared in the black book of the governors forfeited their offices through the dissolution of the councils, in active connivance with the Houses of Assembly.

    In Ibarapa local government, former Governor Rashidi Ladoja delayed the swearing-in of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) council chairman, who defeated the candidate of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), at the poll. In fact, in some states in the Southeast, Southsouth, Southwest, and Northcentral, governors have resisted attempts to hold council elections, to the consternation of anxious aspirants.

    Local governments are also oppressed by the Federal Government. This suppression preceded the current democratic dispensation. In consonance with its centrist approach, the Abacha Administration dazed the country when he appointed a minister of local government.

    The 1999 Constitution, which is the legacy of Abdulsalami Administration, also created friction between the federal and state governments over the control of the local governments. The federal government insisted that states lacked the power to create more councils belong to it, claiming that all the councils have already been listed in the constitution. Former Katsina State Governor Umaru Yar’Adua, who later became President of Nigeria, had to retrace his steps by axing the newly created councils in the state, out of fear. Actually, the power to create councils in Section 8(3) is vested in the House of Assembly. But Section 8(6) gives the power to ratify the creation and list newly created councils to the National Assembly. Many are clamouring for the review of the constitution to clear this area of friction.

    In Lagos State, Tinubu Administration created additional 37 local councils. Despite the fact that they were created by legitimate state authorities, the Federal Government disagreed. The allocations due to the pre-existing 20 local governments were seized by the Obasanjo Administration. Also, the Senate refused to list the new councils in the constitution, despite the referendum that gave their creation the nod.

    In fact, in a memo to the late President Umaru Yar’Adua, who had earlier directed that the withheld allocations should be released, the Ministry of Justice advised him to terminate the newly created councils, saying that they were undermining the judiciary and challenging the authority of the federal government. Irked by the incessant harassment, House of Representatives member, James Faleke, former chairman of one of the councils not listed; Ojodu Local Council Development Area (LCDA); said: “The victimisation of Lagos councils by the federal government undermines the right of Lagosians to development”.

    How have the existing councils fared nationwide? Have they justified the people’s confidence? In Lagos, the House of Assembly members were still inundated with complaints during the town hall meetings that many chairmen showcased cosmetic achievements.

    One of the bane of the councils is the bloated bureaucracy. Many experts think that the councils should trim down so that money spent on maintaining gigantic structures could be deployed to capital expenditure. For example, it has been pointed out that the council cabinet is too large and burdensome. Council chairmen maintain extensive political structures. They appoint too numerous supervisory councillors, special advisers, special assistants, and personal assistants like the President and governors, making the recurrent expenditure to soar. This is at the expense of capital expenditure.

    There is also the need for reforms in other areas of council administration, particularly in making sure that the trio of chairman, council manager and treasurer are closely monitored to prevent outright embezzlement and misappropriation of council funds.

    To improve efficient service delivery, stakeholders have offered the following suggestions:

    • Local governments should localise administration by implementing a formula

    for conducting need analysis through the involvement of Community Development Associations/ Committees

    • Chairmen and councillors should hold town hall meetings regularly to collate input into local policy formulation and implementation

    • Procedure for public accountability should be created and strengthened in the local government

    • The House of Assembly should closely monitor the financial activities of the councils to reduce corruption.

    • There is the need to maintain small political bureaucracy to avoid an upsurge in recurrent expenditure

    • The Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs should evolve mechanism for proper monitoring and evaluation of council developmental projects

    • It is better to encourage retired men and women of integrity to serve as part-time councillors and supervisors, instead of young men who are in a hurry to make money.

    • Code of Conduct Bureau should vet the material acquisition of functionaries, based on their prior financial status as reflected in the asset declaration forms.

    • CDC should resist attempts to impose councillorship and chairmanship candidates on their wards and councils by godfathers and leaders of political parties.

     

  • ‘Nigeria needs aircraft maintenance hangar’

    Chief Executive Officer Belujane Konzults Mr Chris Aligbe has canvassed the setting up of a maintenance facility for aircraft repairs in the country.

    Aligbe said such a facility would reduce operating costs for domestic carriers that fly their planes overseas for major repairs.

    If the facility is established here, it would create jobs for the industry’s professionals, he said.

    Aligbe, a former spokesman of the liquidated Nigeria Airways Limited, said to make the project viable, the facilitators must adopt measures to sustain patronage for the project.

    He said: “A maintenance facility in Nigeria is long overdue. The government should facilitate the establishment of such a project, and ensure that the airlines have enough aircraft in their fleet to ensure that it is profitable.

    “If there are not enough aircraft to sustain the maintenance, repair and overhaul facility, it could be a failure. Above all, there must be competence in fleet and aircraft type to make it work.

    “One sure way of achieving this is the entrenchment of standardisation of fleet and line management to boost the competence of such a facility.”

    He affirmed that without standardisation of aircraft type, the industry could have issues with growth and development, as major aircraft repair facilities are driven by the development of competences in aircraft types.

    He said: “Most of the airlines in Nigeria do not have commonality of aircraft type to drive maintenance and repair overhaul facilities.”