Failing Roads Strain Nigeria’s Economic Growth

The recent commitment of the President Bola Tinubu administration to overhaul the nation’s road network could not have come at a better time given the severity of economic losses suffered by government and private businesses on the account of the near collapse of road infrastructure in Nigeria, reports Festus Akanbi

In Nigeria today, the commonest indices of under-development that cut across the six major geopolitical zones is poverty, which socio-economists blamed on a combination of government economic policies, global economic realities, and poor state of infrastructure.

Despite the huge resources set aside for infrastructure development by the previous administrations, the World Bank in December 2022 still adjudged Nigeria low on infrastructural development, ranking it at 132 of 136 countries surveyed. It noted that at the current slow rate of development, it would take 300 years to fill the gap!

In Nigeria, road infrastructure has been a serious decider of the state of the economy given the need to move goods, agricultural products, and workforce from time to time. 

Apart from the menace of insurgents and kidnapping on the farm, investors in the agricultural sector said the problem of bad roads and the attendant high cost of moving goods and services is one of the problems cited by farmers for the high cost of food items.

A report put the national road network at 195,000km. Out of this, federal roads are estimated to be about 35,000 km, state roads 17,000km, and local government roads taking a whopping estimated 140,000km. Nonetheless, a greater percentage of these road networks are either unpaved or unpliable.

Between Facts and Fiction

Analysts said that given the current sorry state of the Nigerian roads, it is regrettable that the immediate past administration could not be said to have done much despite the huge allocations for infrastructure and the publicity stunts on the few completed road projects. 

Observers said that apart from the Second Niger Bridge which was completed by the past administration, not much could be said about the new roads constructed. Meanwhile, a compendium of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration noted that hundreds of roads, bridges, and houses were constructed and built during his eight years tenure with a budgetary allocation of N1.6trillion.  

The scorecard also noted that between 2016 and 2022, a total of 8,352.94km of roads were constructed or rehabilitated, adding that to achieve this, a total number of 339,955 jobs directly related to the project were created.

Analysts therefore said nothing underscored the sorry state of the Nigerian roads like the recent threat of members of the Nigerian Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) to withdraw their services in protest against the decrepit state of most of the Nigerian roads which they blamed for frequent tanker accidents and the resultant life and economic losses. 

Although the NUPENG strike was averted, economic analysts said the recent affirmation of the poor state and quality of Nigeria’s roads by the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, should be seen as an official acknowledgment of the failure of the successive administrations, especially the immediate one to justify the huge budgetary provisions for infrastructure development.

Umahi, after a recent road inspection tour across the country, lamented that no existing federal road could survive for seven years as the contractors had done terrible jobs. He said many roads were riddled with “potholes” that had deteriorated into “boreholes.”

Presidential Intervention

Realising the seriousness of the situation, President Bola Tinubu is said to have rolled in a comprehensive plan to put Nigerian roads in order. For instance, he recently approved over 260 road interventions across the 36 states and the FCT. This intervention, according to Umahi, cuts across all the geographical sections of the country.

The reality is that federal highways are in shambles, militating against commerce. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, East-West Highway, and Ibadan-Ogbomoso-Ilorin have been undergoing rehabilitation for decades with no end in sight. Some reconstructed roads are washed away with the first sign of rainfall.

Roads including the Makurdi-Nsukka-9th Mile Road, East-West Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Benin bypass road, collapsed bridges of Enugu-Port Harcourt road, collapsed bridges of Shandam-Plateau State, Abuja-Kaduna- Zaria-Kano road and Gombe-Bauchi among others have become eyesores. 

Umahi explained that N300billion funding in the 2023 supplementary budget will be divided into N100billion for the immediate palliative works on all roads in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory and N200billion for the completion of most inherited ongoing projects which will all provide succour for Nigerians.

To assist in terms of financing, the federal government has tried different funding mechanisms for the federal roads. Such initiatives and interventions include the Road Infrastructure Development and Refurbishment Investment Tax Credit Scheme, and the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund to fund.

Companies Groan

In Lagos and Ogun states where revenue drive is topnotch, the problem of road infrastructure is constraining businesses from realising their optimal capacity. For instance, in Ogun State alone, the Agbara-Igbesa axis hosts several companies such as Unilever, Pharma Deko, Beloxxi Biscuits, Flour Mills of Nigeria, and GreenTech, among others. For many years, operators along that axis complained about the past government’s abandonment of the road despite its economic importance. Work later commenced on the road, but some business owners are lamenting the slow pace of the project. 

Some transporters of food items from the northern parts of the country complained that bringing their goods to the southern part has become a nightmare as substantial parts of their gains go to transport.

A potato merchant, Alhaji Danladi Subair,  who narrated his experience said a trailer load of potatoes which he was bringing from Kano tumbled somewhere in Jebba. He explained that he had to hire labourers to pack the goods back to another vehicle which brought the few ones salvaged to Lagos at an additional cost.

Lending his voice to the call for a quick intervention on the road issue, a legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola reportedly blamed poor roads for most of the road accidents and their attendant losses in Nigeria. 

Babalola, who is also the founder of the Afe Babalola University in newspaper articles, said practically, every Nigerian and every sector of the Nigerian economy relies on one form of transportation or the other, with the road being the most utilised means. According to him, this, therefore, connotes that a good road network where commuters arrive at their destination without any delay occurring from bad roads, or where goods are safely and timeously transported from one location to the other is bound to foster economic progress.

He explained that good road infrastructure affects the flexibility and mobility of the workforce from one point to the other, and it is indeed central to good governance and public welfare. 

“Undoubtedly, a seamless road network and infrastructure lowers production costs and raises productivity particularly especially in the agricultural sector where the transportation of crops from the farm to the consumers is a major factor in the production chain.

“Even in the industrial sector, a good road transportation network is required to bridge the gap between the place of production to the point of final consumption,” he said. 

Research has also shown that there is a strong and positive relationship between road transportation and economic growth in Nigeria. It has equally been demonstrated that transportation infrastructure can improve the well-being of the citizens in Nigeria.

Road transportation contributes to the Gross Domestic Product of any country and impacts its economic growth when goods and services can be transported to the end user. 

This implies that a good transportation system is a powerful tool in bolstering productivity and effective distribution of goods and services and, in the long run, increases the economic growth of the country. 

This is why the ongoing project anchored by the Minister of Works should be carried out with seriousness.