From the evidence of the conflicting statements by relevant authorities of the Federal Government on plans to rehabilitate the very strategic Lagos – Ibadan Express Road, it is getting clearer that the government is being rather too economical with the truth of its much mouthed plan to rehabilitate the road. While the Works Minister, Mike Onolememen assures that the government is out to fix the road any time soon, Emeka Ezeh, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) empirically and factually says it is a very tall order.
The Lagos – Ibadan Express Road is unarguably the busiest road that links all the geo-political zones of Nigeria in one way or another. The continued procrastination by the government, for any reason whatsoever, in decisively refurbishing that all-important road and delivering it for a stress-free use by Nigerians and even international users obtrusively continues to query the credibility of this government’s claim to being people’s oriented. This especially as more lives and property keep perishing on that road owing to its unmanageable condition to commuters.
It is worrisome that since the commissioning of the road in 1978 a technical report states that only four patchy rehabilitation and maintenance have been carried out on it.
The last was in May 2007 when Reynolds Construction Company Limited (RCC) was commissioned to construct an additional inner lane for each of the northbound and southbound carriageways with some pavement restoration work between the Lagos and Shagamu interchange.
Since after that the government entered a concession highway management agreement with Bi-Courtney Highway Services Limited on September 3, 2009. That controversial Public – Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement became stillborn with the contractor not rehabilitating the road any inch before the agreement was quashed in 2011 amid more controversies.
What this means is that in the last nearly seven years no form of maintenance has been done on that road. And according to the technical report the road abnitio is very prone to wear and tear on account of the very heavy traffic that plies it day in day out. The road engineers noticed this in 1980, barely a little over one year after commissioning the road.
That is not surprising. Right from the outset that road ought to have had a parallel railway system on both the northbound and the southbound carriageways.
We feel there is still a dire need for a supportive railway network to be attached to the Lagos – Ibadan Express Road to ease it of the killer heavy weight it is saddled with from day one. So much of the heavy machinery and merchandise that are conveyed on that road will be best transported by rail, especially from the commercial capital of Lagos to the more distant northern and southern geo-political zones. That will grant the road due longevity.
We are absolutely worried by the untold hardship Nigerians suffer on that road on account of the government’s refusal to fix it in spite of their several unfulfilled promises to do so over the decades.
That is why we are most un-enchanted by the recent declaration by the Honourable Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen that the government again plans to rehabilitate the road, this time with N100 billion which it hopes to source through a government bond in another Public-Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement. This has left some more worries including the consideration that such bonds invariably worsen the country’s skyrocketing debt portfolio.
From established rigorous processes and procedures for perfecting the securing of such a high profile bond, could government guarantee securing the bond and refurbishing the road even by year 2020?
Our doubts are deep going by the lucid explanations of Emeka Ezeh, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) that whatever PPP model being considered by the government, “the contracting and procurement process shall be subjected to the provisions of the PPP Act 2007 and nine essential steps in public procurement…” This position of the BPP is corroborated by the submissions of the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), which in its 2011 yearly report identified the possible reasons for the failure of the government’s concession with Bi-Courtney as essentially government’s failure to first address various vital issues prior to the concession.
Now the government is again romancing the plan of entering another concession agreement on the same Lagos – Ibadan Express Road. Concession is in line with the best practices in infrastructural development all over the world, but after the failed attempt with Bi-Courtney owing to government’s reported fault, has the government considered all it must consider before embarking on yet another concession?
Are there no better alternative sources of financing and managing the road? This obviously is hampered more by the dearth of visible development infrastructure financing institutions in Nigeria and sustainable management policy.
Yet we feel that the government is still pooling the wool over the eyes of Nigerians on its sincerity about rehabilitating that road. We strongly feel that government can fix that road if it really wishes to; considering the importance of that road to the economic and social life of Nigerians and the heavy losses being suffered on it.
That is why we are constrained to again call on the National Assembly to impinge it upon the federal government to resolutely rehabilitate that road before the end of the Seventh Assembly. And we demand that the government patriotically, diligently and conscientiously decide to do the needful on the Lagos – Ibadan Express Road. That will serve as a major landmark achievement of this administration.
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