A quality road network, being the most critical component of a national multimodal transportation plan, is the foundation of a thriving economy. Good roads link up the national socio-economic arteries, centres, and hubs. It is, therefore, not surprising that the Muhammadu Buhari administration is determined to link Nigerians everywhere by roads and, consequently, bolster the economy.
By December 2023, the long-abandoned Bodo-Bonny Road project in Rivers State will be completed, bringing to a gleeful and gladdening end, one of the most perplexing chapters in the catalogue of Nigeria’s abandoned projects.
Instructively, this project is significant, because there had never been any road linking the two communities since the advent of human existence and civilisation. To move from one end of the community to the other, natives depended largely on swimming, while the major source of transporting people, goods, and services were wooden boats and, later, motorised ferries.
Consequently, the large number of agricultural products, timber, wood, and fish, which abound in the numerous communities and creeks that straddle Bodo and Bonny, can only be used by the natives or transported at a very high cost to other parts of the country. Although three previous administrations in Nigeria tried to construct the all-important road, they failed. Over the years, it continued to feature in every federal government budget.
But help came the way of the historic project when the Muhammadu Buhari administration came on board and created a tax credit policy that encourages the private sector to invest in the construction of roads and other critical national infrastructure and be reimbursed by the government.
Under the policy, the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG), is providing the sum of N200 billion for the Bodo-Bonny road construction while the federal government will refund the money through a tax credit.
As part of President Buhari’s ‘New Vision for the Niger Delta’ Initiative, the road was on the front burner. On October 12, 2017, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo represented the president at the ground-breaking ceremony, where he said: “This road, during construction, will create jobs directly for engineers, artisans, and labourers, and indirectly for food vendors and suppliers, transporters, quarry operators, and so many others in the construction value chain.
“Upon completion, the project will permanently transform the lives of tens of thousands of Nigerian citizens in and around Bonny Island. It will alleviate the hardship commuters face along the Bonny-Bodo axis; facilitate the operations of the NLNG, and bring significant benefit to the lives of farmers, traders, schoolchildren, and travellers.”
Five years after, the 39km Bonny-Bodo Bridges and Road are now a reality. The road snakes through four local government areas and connects the Island of Bonny (a major Nigerian oil and gas hub) to the Ogoni community of Bodo on the Rivers State Mainland.
It comprises three main bridges – Afa Creek Bridge (530m length), Nanabie Creek Bridge (640m length), and a major river bridge of about 750m length over the Opobo Channel; 10 mini-bridges that will complement the main bridges; a pipeline-crossing bridge; and multiple pipeline crossings and culverts. Together, the bridges total about 2km in length. The rest of the 39km project will consist of an asphalt highway through the low-lying swampy area.
Though still under construction, the completed stretch is said to have drastically reduced travel time to the Afa Creek Jetty (Patrick Waterside) from 40 minutes to five minutes and travel costs from N6000 to N2000 per passenger. Similarly, residents can now easily access their farms, schools, and health centres.
During an inspection tour recently, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, said, “There is no fear that the project would be completed by December next year and about the funding or the ability and competence of Julius Berger to deliver on the project and in superb quality.”
Fashola added: “From the first time I visited to understand the project at hand, it was alarming that within one state, people could not connect. They were inhibited. But the Peace Committee set up for the project embraced all the communities in this project area. Thank God, they are all working together now.”
As the first road linking Bonny Island to the rest of Rivers State, the Bodo-Bonny road is a milestone infrastructure development project for the advancement of the Niger Delta and a catalyst for the continued success of Bonny Island – a key industrial area in Nigeria tied to the economic development and general wellbeing of the Nation as a whole.
Similarly, one of Nigeria’s most important highways, the Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road, will enable and improve the movement of people and agricultural products especially, from the North to the South and vice versa – thereby uniting the Nigerian people and economy, and connecting Nigeria to North Africa via the Lagos-Algiers Trans-African Highway, also has a 2023 completion date.
To address the poor condition and deterioration of this priority road, Julius Berger was contracted to rehabilitate and reconstruct 375.9 km of the dual carriageway: From the Federal Capital Territory Abuja through Kaduna, excluding the Kaduna bypass, on to Zaria and further north to Kano.
To deliver a value-driven solution, Julius Berger is constructing the three road sections simultaneously and has pioneered the use of innovative cold recycling methodology. The efficient and environmentally-friendly solution results in complete rehabilitation by recycling the milled-off pavement to produce a bitumen-stabilised material, which is then utilised for paving the base course layer of the new road.
This methodology has numerous benefits. The new road will have an increased bearing capacity compared to the previous pavement constructed with a granular base course, leading to an extended lifespan. It is environmental-friendly, helps to conserve natural resources, construction traffic is greatly reduced compared to conventional methods, fewer heavy load-bearing trucks on the road, less road congestion, and diminishing the burden on the livelihood of the surrounding communities.
While speaking in Kaduna at an inspection tour of roads under construction and rehabilitation in Northwestern states, Engr. Folorunso Esan, the Director of Highways, Construction and Rehabilitation of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing, expressed delight that the construction on the two sections of the road is going on as scheduled. He assured Nigerians that they would be able to have access to the entire road by 2023 as work on the two sections has gone a long way.
“The pace of work and the quality are satisfactory and it will be delivered before the end of this year. This section two and three will be delivered this year and will remain only Abuja-Kaduna,” he explained.
In the southwest, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway, which has suffered many fits and starts, is expected to be completed before the 2023 election. The delay in the completion of the road, Fashola said recently, was due to a drainage system being constructed by the Oyo State government, which slowed down the pace of work on the expressway and forced the contractor to work at night.
He pointed out that part of the delay in the completion of the reconstruction work was the high volume of traffic on the expressway that he estimated at 40,000 per car a day and so it cannot be closed down completely. The 127-kilometre Lagos-Ibadan Expressway is Nigeria’s oldest road commissioned in 1978 by the military government led by Olusegun Obasanjo. It is currently being rehabilitated and expanded and the federal government has assured the people that it would be completed and commissioned in February 2023.
One of the federal road projects, whose completion will immediately impact economic activities is the Apapa-Oshodi-Oworonshoki Expressway, which is being reconstructed as a concrete road. Built 40 years ago, this vital economic gateway can be likened to the nation’s spinal cord, the backbone of Nigeria’s import and export business.
Also ready for commissioning, Fashola disclosed when he appeared before the House of Representatives Committee on Works to defend the 2022 budget proposal, are the Kano-Maiduguri Road linking Kano-Jigawa-Bauchi-Yobe and the Borno States Section II (177.77 km executed for N65.32 billion and Section 101.84 km for N45.18 billion); the rehabilitated Vandeikya-Obudu-Obudu Cattle Ranch Road (Vandeikya-Obudu Section) in Benue for N6.69 billion; and the Sokoto-Tambuwal-Jega-Kontagora-Makera Section in Sokoto and Kebbi States, which length is put at 155km for N30.45 billion. There are also the Nnenwe-Oduma-Mpu (Enugu State)-Uburu (Ebonyi State), which is 40.27km long, with a contract sum of N12,598,151,083.54; and the construction of Ikom Bridge in Cross River State, with a length of 323.20 metres and approach road of 1.2km at a contract sum of N8,916,062,392.83, among others.
The minister added, “The rehabilitation of Nguru-Gashua-Bayamari Road, Section II (Gashua-Bayamari), with length 25.00km, executed for N6,581,999,666.55. The construction of a two-lane bridge over the Cross River at the Cameroon-Nigeria Border at Ekok/Mfum, including approach roads.”
According to Fashola, the ministry has about 13,000km of roads and bridges under construction and rehabilitation in 856 contracts, comprising 795 projects and an aggregate length of 816.29km of roads and 733.2m of bridges. These, according to him, have been completed.
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Indeed, like Hon. Abubakar Kabir, the House Committee Chairman on Works said, President Muhammad Buhari has achieved immense success in road construction “despite the financial constraint; it’s highly commendable and is nothing short of a miracle.”
With a government determined to provide smooth and motorable roads, it is the hope that road users will achieve a mitigation of the wear and tear of vehicles, enhance the country’s socioeconomic development, improve road safety, ensure smooth traffic, reduce travel time and traffic congestion, and make for better connectivity in and around the federation.
