At the end of the Muhammadu Buhari administration's tenure in January 2023, the government approved a project plan under which nine roads across the country, totaling 1,347 kilometers, would be put into service over 25 years.
The plan is described as the first phase of a public partnership project plan under the Highway Development and Maintenance Initiative (HDMI).
Remember: January 2023. However, the HDMI project began much earlier, in 2020, with a call for bids. Preferred bidders were announced in April 2022, and the government approved nine of the 12 expressways in January 2023.
The nine included the 195km Abuja-Lokoja Expressway. (Lokoja Benin, which I have written quite a bit about, has been postponed to the second stage of the HDMI project process, along with several other projects.)
It is noted that in January 2023, the government approved the application of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to invest NOK 1.9 trillion in the rehabilitation of 44 federal roads under the NNPCL tax regime.
The list of roads included at least the Abuja-Lokoja section of the A2 expressway. Contractors involved included CGC Nigeria, Mother Cat, Dantata & Sawoye, and RCC, with the government entering into a commercial agreement with the concessionaire in May 2023.
In January 2024, under the new administration, Mr. Umahi set a deadline of March 2024 for handing over the road to road concessionaires. Lokoja Road is his Avia Infrastructure Services Limited (AISL), according to his HDMI project brief for the Abuja concessionaire, Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC).
Last week, in a meeting with four construction contractors, the Minister of Works, David Umahi, threatened to terminate the contracts.
He sounded very angry, describing the scandal without admitting there was one. A contractor receives an incompetent contract and remains on a single project for 17 years seeking a contract modification.
Umahi said the initial project cost for the Abuja-Lokoja road was N121 billion before the administration of President Bola Tinubu, which has been revised to about N870 billion.
“We asked the contractors for approval that they could do the job and they did, but the arrogance of contractors in this country is very insulting. Contractors decide what happens. In the Ministry of Industry, many contractors have more than 17 projects, but they don't have the manpower or equipment to do it. They've been doing politics for 17 years. We continue to do so, and the results are showing.”
CGC Nigeria, Mother Cat, Dantata and Sawoye, and RCC have been involved in various aspects of the Abuja-Benin City Road for most of the past two decades. I have cited them in previous interventions on this subject.
If they are involved in projects under the NNPCL tax scheme, it seems too early to threaten them considering the scheme is only a year old. If the threat is related to their activities in the Abuja-Benin City area over the past 20 years, then justice is needed, not threats.
The deal, which is said to have been signed during the Olusegun Obasanjo era, was subsequently approved by the Umaru Yardua, Goodluck Jonathan and Muhammadu Buhari governments, but none of the governments approved it. Instead, they have since entered into at least 10 separate deals, as I investigated here in “Does Dave Umahi Know Nigeria I?”
It is not justice to simply blame a contractor who has caused significant damage over a long period of time. They should be identified and prosecuted.
Similarly, they may have been blackmailed by government officials or governments that have failed to fulfill contracts or that have continued to enter into new contracts for their own purposes without investigating or fulfilling existing contracts. Attacking contractors is also not justice.
That being said, I'll reiterate the obvious. The poor condition of Nigeria’s infrastructure, especially roads, is a crime and crimes are committed by people. These principal figures are various Ministers of Works and officials of the same ministries. I have already called on Mr Umahi to start from his office if anything really changes.
For example, two weeks ago I drew attention to the Bola Tinubu government's introduction of an app called Citizens' Delivery Tracker to track public projects. This is the exact same feature as Eyemark, which his predecessor launched a few months before he left office.
My comment: “This is a combination of parallelism in planning, spending and execution, multi-level, multi-year, multi-administration, uncoordinated, inconsistent and incompetent chaos that leaves Nigeria with simply the worst infrastructure in the world.” It's another example of how we've brought in not only the greatest infrastructure, but a collection of unfinished projects, including railways, schools, and hospitals.”
It's a good idea to arm the public with the ability to track projects, but what's the point when the same projects are re-budgeted and re-budgeted by successor governments with unclear sections and stages that are never completed? I wonder if there is?
But this is the mess the Federal Government has made regarding infrastructure development in Nigeria. No project is truly designed to be completed, let alone short-term. Nor are any projects important or limited enough to attract a clear completion schedule.
This is why when I write about the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Lagos-Calabar Railway, the Abuja-Kano Road or the Abuja-Benin City Road, I always remind people that it is just a metaphor. The same problem applies across the country.
Our government is built on cunning and manipulation, not performance. They lack a commitment to service as much as a commitment to excellence. That's why they contract and contract and contract again. Contractors realize there is much more money in the game than performance and invest in the game.
please think about it. In 2012, Jonathan terminated his four-year contract with By Courtney because he was “distressed” that the construction of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway was taking too long. His administration came to an end in his 2015 year, but the work was not done.
Buhari's government implemented the same plan for eight years until 2023, with the expressway still not completed.
Sadly, the Tinubu administration continues the tradition of far more project announcements than completed projects everywhere.
This is part of the reason why the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, which is said to replace the Lagos-Calabar Railway that Buhari was unable to build, is in serious trouble.
Advocates of the regime insist that the N15.6 trillion tab for roads alone, not the free photo-trick rail in the middle of the 10-lane project, is not the issue. It is expected to be completed in Tinubu's eight years.
But if Umahi thinks it is an insult for contractors to play games with contracts, it is an even bigger insult for the government to play politics with projects. How can you build a project around redistricting that is not even on the table, let alone won?
Why did Buhari make such an embarrassing failure? He was unprepared for the task of governing. Those who wrote his words were unable to provide the skill or heart necessary for governing as a serious project.
It spanned several years and included the implementation of projects across the country. So far, as expected, Renewed Hope is following the same path, with little hope.
