Underscoring Benefits of Road Infrastructure

The commitment to address road infrastructure in the country is one of the cardinal goals of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. The government is matching words with actions especially with the construction of Abuja-Keffi-Lafia-Makurdi-Oturkpo-Enugu Road Project,
Ugo Aliogo, Sunday Okobi and Adibe Emenyonu write

Effective road network remains a vital factor to the economic prosperity of any country because of its role in driving commerce, and transportation. The task of building good road networks rests on the federal and state governments. But the sad narrative is that there are misplaced priorities, as budgetary allocations meant for road infrastructure are diverted to other things, thereby causing a delay in project completion. The state of many roads across the country has left too much to be desired; some are even death traps causing numerous fatal accidents.

Building good road networks is one of the political agenda used by politicians to score political points at electioneering campaigns, but after assuming office, the promise becomes a mirage. President Muhammadu Buhari’s second tenure in office has tried from all indications to change the narrative of road infrastructure with the repair of major federal roads and bridges in the country. The desire of the government is to match words with action and not to follow the same path as its predecessors.

However, according to information from the Ministry of Works, the government is changing the narrative in area of road infrastructure with the construction of 5.4km of Abuja-Keffi expressway and dualisation of Keffi-Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi Road (Phase I) and construction of Lafia Bypass road and the dualisation of 9th Mile(Enugu)-Otukpo-Makurdi road project (phase II).

The construction of the project is of immense significance to domestic, social and economic development in the country. The project aims to create a perfect linkage between the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Abuja and the oil-producing region of the South. The project will help relieve the pressure on the old roads caused by the increasing traffic volume. The project, accordingly, will bring a large number of jobs to the local residents, improve the road safety, and promote regional economic development.

Main Work of the Project Phase I

The expansion of 5.4km of the Abuja-Keffi expressway and dualisation of the Keffi-Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi road is located in the Southwest axis of Abuja, crossing the FCT and Nasarawa and Benue States, with a total length of 227.2km, including the Abuja-Keffi and Keffi-Makurdi sections.

The 5.4km Abuja-Keffi section will have two-lane auxiliary roads on both sides of the existing six-lane section. The 221.8km Keffi-Makurdi section will see an expansion of the existing two-way two-lane section to a two-way four-lane section.

Phase II: The construction of Lafia Bypass road and dualisation of 9th Mile (Enugu)-Otukpo-Makurdi Road is located east of the Lafia city and the North Central and South-eastern parts of Nigeria, connecting two states of Benue and Enugu. The total length of the route is about 268.5km with a two-way two-lane design, with 261 culverts and three bridges.

The Necessity of the Reconstruction of Phase I and II

Phase I of the project is through Lafia, the capital of Nasarawa State, and Makurdi, the capital of Benue State. The two cities have large population and are developing rapidly. In Phase I of the Keffi-Makurdi Road Project, except the urban section of Lafia road is four lanes, the other sections are two lanes.

During the construction process of Phase I, under the condition of limited financial resources, the basic requirements of improving national trunk road A234 and A3 will be from two lanes to four lanes. In order to solve the problem of serious pavement damage and improve the operation conditions of the section, the pavement repair and pavement was carried out to restore its function as a four-lane arterial road.

Through the pavement repair and work of Phase I Project, the A3 road will become more comfortable, fast, and safe in the Lafia section. However, the work has not addressed the problems in urban section of Lafia as heavy traffic volume seriously scope of street traffic congestion problems caused by north-south A3 highway and east-west Lafia-Shandamu and Duma-Lafia road transit vehicles passing through the city and meeting in the city centre, as well as imperfect road network constraining the development of the city.

Moreover, since the start of the Phase I Project in 2012, with the rapid growth of Nigeria’s economy, the traffic volume of A3 road is increasing, and the urban population and scale of Lafia are gradually expanding. At that time, the traffic bottlenecks of Lafia section of A3 road and the imperfect road network of Lafia city were becoming more serious. The urgency of the construction of the Lafia Circle Road has also attracted increasing attention from the Local Government Council.

During the Phase II Project, professionals studied how to solve the congestion of A3 road and how to expand the urban road network for the future development of the city, and finally decided on the plan of building the circle city road in the east of Lafia city to realize the expansion of the road network. This implied that through the expansion of the new four-lane circle city road, the bottleneck problem of the Lafia section of A3 road will be thoroughly solved, the urban road network will be expanded, and the development of Lafia will be led to the flat area in the eastern part of the city.

The strategy also conforms to the planning of the federal government and the state government for the Lafia road network and urban development. The necessity of the construction of the Lafia Circle City Road Section is described in detail as follows. Firstly, there will be a need to improve the national trunk road network in Nigeria and improve the transportation capacity of the main roads. Nigeria has basically formed a federal highway network with national trunk highways as its skeleton.

The North-South direction mainly has ‘four verticals’ constructed by the four vertical trunk roads of A1-A4. The east-west direction is mainly the ‘seven horizontal highways connecting the four vertical trunk highways of A1-A4. The ‘four verticals and seven horizontals’ road network basically covers the major states and major cities in Nigeria. The project is a section of the vertical trunk highway A3 in the Nigerian national trunk highway network and is connected to the national horizontal trunk highways A233 and A344. A3 road starts with Port Harcourt in Rivers State and ends at the vertical national trunk road in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno State, radiating Abuja horizontally.

The implementation of the project will directly assume the function of the main roads of transportation in the four states of Nasarawa, Benue, Kogi and Enugu, and effectively improving the regional traffic conditions, improve the construction of the national highway network in Nigeria, and enhance the service within the A3 road area.

Secondly, there is a need to build a transportation corridor for the ‘Golden Strip’ economic zone; construct the national high-grade road network which with the capital city of Abuja as the centre will connect Lagos in the Southwest, Port Harcourt in the South-south region and Kano in the North.

Among them, Lagos, the former capital and largest port city as well as the economic centre of the country, gathers one-third of the national industrial enterprises and the number of employees, and its total industrial output value accounts for 60 percent of Nigeria. Port Harcourt, located in the heart of the oil industry, and it is the second-largest port in Nigeria and the capital of Rivers State. Presently, Port Harcourt has become the main export port of coal, oil products, tin mines, antimony ore and peanuts. While Kano is now a major commercial town, culture, and transportation centre in northern part of Nigeria.

The Abuja-Lagos section has completed the transformation from two lanes to four lanes, except that the 28km of the Ogbomoso-Atiba section and the 326km of the Lokoja-Ilorin section have not been transformed from two lanes to four lanes. Abuja and Lagos belong to two central cities in Nigeria. There are currently two main passages between Abuja and Lagos, namely Lokoja-Ilorin-Lagos and Lokoja-Benin City – Lagos respectively, both are two-lane highways, with a total capacity of equivalent two-way four-lanes. The Abuja-Kano section currently has the only main passage, and the current road has completed the four-lane renovation and upgrading.

Abuja-Port Harcourt also has the only one main passage. In addition to the Keffi-Makurdi section, which has been launched, the Enugu-Port Harcourt section has basically completed the four-lane upgrading and reconstruction. Currently, only the Makurdi-Enugu section is a two-way two-lane highway. After the completion of the project, from the perspective of upgrading and renovation, the ‘Golden Strip’ road network will complete 87 percent of the four-lane upgrade and renovation; in terms of the overall transportation function, the 4-lane main skeleton road network has been basically completed.

From the analysis of the road status in the planning of the traffic corridor of the ‘Golden Strip’ economic region, the implementation of the project will expand the current two-way two-lane road into a two-way four-lane road. Breaking the bottleneck that the Kano-Port Harcourt section in the ‘Golden Strip’ road network is only a two-lane road, perfecting the main skeleton network, and ensuring the consistency of the traffic capacity of the main skeleton traffic road network, to ensure the overall transportation function of the road network in the ‘Golden Strip’ area is fully exerted. This will promote a closer connection between economic activities in the region.

The implementation of the project is not only necessary, but also very urgent. In the planning of the ‘Golden Strip’ economic regional traffic corridor, the Abuja-Lagos section has completed the transformation from two lanes to four lanes, except that the 28km of the Ogbomoso-Atiba section and the 326km of the Lokoja-Ilorin section have not been transformed from two lanes to four lanes.

Abuja and Lagos belong to two central cities in Nigeria. There are currently two main passages between Abuja and Lagos, which are the Lokoja-Ilorin-Lagos and Lokoja-Benin-city-Lagos respectively, both are two-lane highways, with a total capacity of equivalent two-way four-lanes. The Abuja-Kano section currently has the only main passage, and the current road has completed the four-lane renovation and upgrading. Abuja-Port Harcourt also has only one main passage. In addition to the Keffi-Makurdi section, which has been launched, the Enugu-Port Harcourt section has basically completed the four-lane upgrading and reconstruction.

As a resources-based country in Africa and even in the world, Nigeria has abundant oil reserves. Nigeria’s oil-producing areas are mainly concentrated in the southern region. With the rapid development of the Nigerian economy, it will further stimulate the vigorous development of the economy around the southern oil states. A developed and convenient road network will be needed to support the country’s economic development.

The implementation of the project’s reconstruction and the expansion will provide higher quality service and a more complete road network for the future economic development of the southern states.

Restoring Existing Road Traffic Conditions

As the most important North-South passage in the eastern Nigeria corridor, the project undertakes the vital role of freight transportation northwards from Port Harcourt, especially to such areas as Abuja and Kano; and the proportion of heavy vehicles in the project is high, reaching about 22.5 percent.

The insufficient road maintenance in Nigeria and not timely treatment of road troubles has resulted in serious road diseases, which seriously affect the road speed and traffic safety. The diseases of the project can be seen everywhere in the country.

According to the site survey of the road conditions of the project, it is evident that the proportion of the serious and above diseases is as high as 41.5 percent, and the road surface diseases of the local section has penetrated into the roadbed, which makes it difficult for vehicles to pass. The proportion will further increase with the passage of time. The implementation of the project will fundamentally solve the current situation of serious road diseases, insufficient capacity of passage and frequent car accidents, so that the road driving performance will be at its best.

Safer Transportation Services

At present, the Makurdi-Enugu section of the A3 federal highway in Nigeria is a two-way two-lane road. Due to the long-term disrepair, the local section is difficult to travel, and traffic accidents are prone to happen when vehicles are driving and overtaking recklessly. The condition of vehicles in Nigeria is generally poor, as they often break down on both sides of the road.

The anchored vehicles will occupy one lane, which will increase the road congestion and cause local traffic congestion. At the same time, the traffic is blocked by traffic; local part of the road is only one-lane traffic, which can easily cause secondary traffic accidents. The implementation of the reconstruction and expansion project of this road will provide capacity expansion to alleviate traffic congestion to a certain extent, and to a large extent avoid traffic accidents.

Taking into account Nigerian’s driving habits, most drivers are always fast and overtaking frequently, so for the current two-way two-lane road, occupying the opposite side of the road for overtaking is prone to accidents, causing losses to the people and bringing greater pressure to the traffic safety management department.

The implementation of the project will provide separate opposite driving conditions, which can greatly reduce traffic congestion and traffic accidents caused by the above reasons, and improve transportation conditions. Therefore, in order to provide safe and smooth transportation services to residents and vehicles along the road, it is necessary to implement the project.

Financing Road Infrastructure Project

To drive the efficiency of the project, the federal government embarked on a borrowing plan to augment the budgetary allocation slated for the road project. The borrowing has become vital for the government because when the road is fully completed, it will boost the trade and movement of goods and services smoothly from one place to another.

Moreover, the roads are going to have toll-plazas which are revenue-generating assets that will recoup the investments made in the project within a set period of time. Furthermore, the road infrastructure will greatly benefit communities especially in transporting their farm produce to the markets, it will create employment opportunities for those operating, running, and maintaining the toll gates and the tolls paid by motorists will boost the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of the federal government.

The introduction of toll gates will be an opportunity to bring the private sector to invest in the infrastructure and run the project for a certain period to recover their investment. This will help to better position the state of federal roads for a long period of time.

The repayment plan for the loan will be done with the introduction of tolls to be paid by vehicles plying the roads.

Meanwhile, the Senate Committee Chairman of Internal and External Borrowing, Senator Clifford Ordia, hinted that Senate approved President Muhammadu Buhari’s fresh $8.3billion loans in order to fix all economic important roads in the country.

He stated that the Senate approved President’s request for ongoing external loans to the tune of $8,325,526,537 and €490,000,000 under the 2018-2020 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan to fix the infrastructural deficit in the country toward social-economic development of Nigeria.

The lawmaker remarked that the approval followed the consideration of a report on the 2018-2020 External Borrowing (Rolling) Plan by the Committee on Local and Foreign Debt.

Ordia, in his presentation, disclosed that the panel observed that with utmost importance, the concerns of Nigerians about the level and sustainability/serviceability of the country’s borrowings in the last decade.

According to the lawmaker, “Nigeria’s debt service figures constitute a huge drain on our revenue to the extent that it accounts for over 30 percent of our expenditure in the annual budget.”

The Role of the Federal Government

Since the commencement of the project, the federal government, especially through the Minister for Finance, Zainab Ahmed, and the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, has shown sufficient commitment to see it to a conclusive end,

On November 12, 2020, during the 70th Session of the Trans Sahara Road Liaison Committee (TRLC), Fashola led ministers from Algeria, Tunisia, Mali, Niger and Chad to visit the construction site of the road project.

He told the ministers that the roads are expected to serve 37 regions in Africa and connect 74 urban centers as well as 60 million people across the six countries that are members of the committee.

The former Lagos State governor explained that on the local front, the road would pass through Lagos and Ibadan, to Ilorin, Jeba, Kaduna, and to Kano where Nigeria shares a border with the Republic of Niger.

He also pointed out that the project which is being constructed by CHEC is an important part of the Trans Sahara highway, and the implementation of the project would greatly improve the traffic capacity of Nigeria’s highway network.

Fashola stated that the main works to be done in the execution of the project include sub-grade, bridge, and culvert, as well as drainage and pavement.

He added: “The road would have an electromechanical toll station that would be completed in March 2022. The contractor’s track record of being result-oriented will ensure the delivery of the best result possible in the project.”