If there is any road in the country that has portrayed successive governments in the country in bad light as failed governments in the last two decades, it is the Lagos-Sagamu –Ore –Benin road.
The controversial road, best described as a death trap, has degenerated over the years that a number of people had lost their lives. Although it is one major highway that connects virtually all the Southwest states, linking the western and eastern parts of the country, it was abandoned by the federal government for several years. The question being asked in some quarters before the present intervention by the federal ministry of works under the leadership of Architect Mike Onolememen, is how come the road was neglected by the government despite its importance to the social –economic growth of the country?
The authority couldn’t have claimed ignorance of the suffering of commuters on the road or the alarming casualties recorded on the road that became a nightmare to motorists. In 2008, Dieziani Allison Madueke, wept uncontrollably at the Lagos- Sagamu –Ore- Benin Road in her early days as transport minister. To capture the decay of the road, Allison –Madueke said then in an emotion-laden voice that “I weep at the sight of everything that shows failure of government in Nigeria. Lagos-Shagamu-Ore-Benin Road is a clear picture of Nigerian state abandonment of its responsibility to its citizens”.
“The challenge for us is to act wisely in dealing with this matter. The errors have been made but I think we can still correct the problem by looking for what will ensure a renewed government relevance not for self-serving or the good of a few but the good of all”.
But, many years after this promise, the road is yet to be fixed. The road becomes impassable; commuters continue to face longer hours of stressful journey at the mercy of armed robbers; while others were force to sleep on the road for a journey that hitherto took only four hours.
Indeed, Nigerians are still in shock following the ordeal of 42 pupils of Holy Rosary College, Enugu State who were attacked by armed robbers and some of them were allegedly raped after the luxury bus conveying them to Lagos broke down at Ogbere area of Ogun State recently. The unfortunate incident further confirmed the fear of those plying the Sagamu-Benin Expressway that had become a den of armed robbers. To many motorists and commuters, plying the roads is like “walking through the valley of the shadow of death”.
It got to point that former member of the House of Representatives, Honourable Patrick Obahiagbon threatened to lead a mass protest against the federal government if it failed to rehabilitate the Benin-Ore-Lagos road.
The lawmaker said it might become necessary to investigate the reasons for the continued abandonment of the road even after budgetary provisions were made for its rehabilitation over the years.
Intriguingly, in the wake of mounting public complaints over the deplorable state of the expressway, the federal government with Dr. Hassan Lawal as the minister of works, housing and urban development, had awarded contracts to the tune of N12. 2 billion for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of two sections of the road.
Two multinational civil engineering firms commissioned to execute the contracts are Messrs Reynolds Construction Company Limited (RCC), handling the Salami – Ajebandele – Ore – Benin Road Section I (Ajebandele – Ofosu road in Ondo State) and Messrs Borini Prono and Company Nigeria Limited for the repair of Shagamu – Ajebandele – Ore – Benin Road Section II in Ogun State. Whether they adhered to it or not they had a completion period of 30 and 18 months in that order.
The Reynolds contract was worth N9.89 billion while the Borini Prono and Company Nigeria Limited job was put at a cost of N2.50 billion.
Curiously, the daily sufferings and occurrences on the Lagos –Abeokuta Roads also in the Southwest is not different from that of the Lagos –Sagamu –Ore –Benin road despite the fact that the projects for the reconstruction had long been awarded by the government. Speaking on plans to put an end to the continuous suffering of the commuters on the road the minister of works Architect Onolememen told LEADERSHIP in Lagos that the road projects had been accorded priority attention for immediate reconstruction, as a paradigm shift from previous efforts that did not yield the desired result.
According to him, “Prior to my assumption of office last year, earlier initiatives to reforms the road sector were not accorded the desired attention. I am aware that the road project is on-going, but we also know that some challenges exist on that road because of the suffering that Nigerians pass through on that road.
“This makes it more important for us to take it up as our priority project and we have christened it national emergency road construction under the transformation agenda of Mr. President. I want to assure you that we will set the ball rolling again on that road. We are already discussing with the contractors who virtually abandoned the work”, he said.
“Truly, source of funds is a major challenge as it may interest you to know that the federal ministry of works is engaged in different construction of roads in this country. Road constructions and all our ongoing projects are in the tune of N900b, out of which we got budgetary allocation of N128b. If we match that with commitment, we will appreciate the problems we are facing with funding”.
To conquer the problem of funding as a hindrance to the realisation of the project, the man now fondly called transformer of Nigerian roads, said part of the accruals arising from the recent partial deregulation of the prices of petroleum products in the country would be devoted to the implementation of the project.
His words: “At the federal level, government has identified six critical road infrastructure projects to be financed with proceeds accruable from partial deregulation of the petroleum sector through the SURE-Programme.
“These projects include the completion of the rehabilitation of Sagamu –Ore –Benin dual carriageway, dualisation of Abuja –Abaji –Lokoja Expressway, Completion of the construction of Loko –Oweto Bridge; and the completion of the rehabilitation of Onitsha –Enugu dual carriageway”.
The minister, who emphasized that the present administration is prepared to find a permanent solution to the problem, added that “the ministry has begun a complete re-design of the road to guarantee its durability and forestall its repeated failures.”
He said the desire of the federal government is to ensure economically viable roads in the country are reconstructed and modernised through different funding options, such as government budget, multi-lateral funding, borrowing, collaboration with key stakeholders and the Public Private Partnership.