Having functional and well-maintained federal roads across the country has over the years been a mirage. Successive governments have failed to keep the network of roads in a condition that will make the vital infrastructure contribute meaningfully to the enhancement of life and attainment of developmental goals.
The governments have also been unable to develop a fail-proof strategy for a road network befitting the status of the country and fulfilling the need of the citizens.
The story is the same across the country. Lagos-Ibadan; Enugu-Aba-Port-Harcourt; Enugu-Onitsha; Abuja-Kaduna; Kaduna-Kano; Bauchi-Jos-Abuja; Sagamu-Benin; Benin-Asaba, etcetera, all have the same misfortune of being classified federal roads, but barely gasping for survival like neglected orphans.
Many of the federal roads are in bad shape, not only endangering the lives of citizens, who travel on them daily, but also being the routes through which many unfortunate ones transit to the beyond.
READ ALSO: http://Buhari’s second marriage rumoured or on hold?
Besides imperilling the lives of travellers, the roads also frustrate economic activities. Transportation of produce and products for farmers and manufacturers is a big challenge.
Reconstruction or rehabilitation of the highways takes forever. When a section of the same stretch of road is worked on, the process takes so long that it begins to go bad before the others are even touched.
The reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, unarguably the busiest in the country, has been an issue since 2007. After several years of tussle between the concessionaire and the previous administration, it began to receive the attention of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in 2015. Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola told this newspaper in a recent interview that the contract was scheduled for four years subject to availability of funds. The implication is that the construction completion deadline is not cast in stone.
The Second Niger Bridge construction, which has also suffered many years of delay, has a 2022 completion date, subject to availability of funds. Fashola said that more than 500 road projects were competing for the scarce budgetary funds.
To further underscore the funding problem, Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, said recently that the Federal Government budgeted about N250 billion for roads this year and that if the government decided to complete just the Lagos-Ibadan, Kaduna-Abuja and Kaduna-Kano expressways, the projects would cost N500 billion. The Federal Government, he said, had about 36,000 kilometres of roads, waiting for rehabilitation.
As a way out of the funding inadequacy, the Buhari administration introduced Road Infrastructure Tax Credit Scheme, under which companies are allowed to fund road construction or rehabilitation across the country and recover the cost, as tax credit over a period of time.
President Buhari announced in the 2020 budget speech that already, 19 roads and bridges of 794.4 kilometres across 11 states, costing N205 billion had been approved for construction or repair under the scheme.
READ ALSO: http://Police arraign Lagos socialite for perjury
In the same vein, the government had recently announced plans to reintroduce tolling on federal roads.
While commending the efforts of the government to rethink existing templates to tackle the challenge of bad roads, we, however, express reservations about the auspiciousness of tolling federal roads at this time.
President Olusegun Obasanjo had directed the dismantling of the toll gates in 2003. He had said that the toll gates, which were introduced before the military handover to civilian administration in 1979, had outlived their usefulness, were inconveniencing motorists and causing accidents; they had also become a cesspool of corruption.
The tolling system was replaced with petroleum tax, with the assurance that the proceeds would be used to improve the federal roads.
What has happened to the fuel tax Obasanjo introduced? Is the fuel tax model that is working effectively in the United States, China, Canada and South Africa for road construction and rehabilitation not viable in our environment?
We believe pondering funding strategies for the roads without reducing the colossal ownership the Federal Government holds on roads across the country will not help our situation. Many of the roads crying for attention are better reclassified as state roads and handed over to the state governments for effective maintenance.
For instance, it is a surprise that the section of old Lagos-Abeokuta road from Ile Zik to Abule-Egba still remains a federal road. That section, which had been ridden with potholes for a few years, is now being rehabilitated by the Federal Government, using scarce funds that should have been deployed in other areas.
It took the Lagos State government years of tussling before the road leading to the Murtala Muhammed International Airport could be handed over to it. The road had been an eyesore for many years until the Governor Akinwunmi Ambode’s administration eventually rebuilt it to the delight of all.
Why would the Federal Government continue to keep roads it lacks funds and capacity to rehabilitate and maintain? We support the initiatives to make the federal roads motorable, but this administration should start with reclassification to share the burden and devise maintenance strategies that will ensure that roads built with scarce funds are adequately maintained and to think less about adding to the financial pressures of citizens.
