Penultimate week, the Minister of Works, Chief Dave Umahi started off on what appears a positive note when he embarked on a tour of projects under his Ministry in the Lagos and South-West axis. He, however, poured portions of palm oil on his own white apparel when he echoed the largely directionless timelines his immediate predecessor in office, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola was well known for.
If there is an award for a public officer who is adept at giving timelines that were never met, Fashola should be a holder of the Guinness World Record right now as far as Lagos/Ibadan Expressway is concerned.
After taking over the reconstruction of the road in 2015 and wading through some battles with the deposed concessionaire, Bi-Courtney Highway Services, Fashola eventually agreed in 2018 that the Federal Government should fully fund the project. He had stated then that the road was “very critical” and could not be left to the lengthy processes involved in negotiating a Public-Private Partnership arrangement.
And from 2021, he started dishing out timelines for its completion, none of which he eventually met. In November 2021, Fashola told the House of Representatives that the road would be completed in 2022. He later announced September 2022 as the completion date. When that date looked unrealistic, Fashola attempted to blame the government of Oyo State for causing the delay, a claim that was vehemently rejected by the state government. He, thereafter, announced while appearing on a Channels Television programme, Sunday Politics, on July 24, 2022, that the road would be completed in December of that year. He equally set April 30, 2023, and then June 30, 2023. None of the datelines materialised.
While signing off on the last failed dateline, Fashola told the nation that: “There is a critical section in the four-kilometre last mile to Lagos. It is technical but what has delayed it is that we found black cutting soil under the pavement…
“We have decided that we will remove it and replace it so that we do a proper job instead of being in a hurry to commission it. That will be deferred to the next administration and the expected completion date is the 30th of June.”
Such a submission should surprise many engineers, considering that the road is not a greenfield project. I was told that with the sanity that prevailed in the construction sector in 1978 when it was first commissioned, soil tests per kilometre and all necessary precautions would have been taken into consideration. The ministry should have those details in its archives, so you wonder where the excuses were coming from.
Indeed, the story of Fashola and the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway is a story of how a public officer should not treat his own people. It was therefore shocking to hear Minister Umahi announce a dateline of mid-September 2023 and later end of September 2023, as the likely completion date of the project, just in line with the practice perfected by his predecessor.
Each time Fashola announced those failed datelines, I took a ride on the road and I was convinced that not even the late Prof Peller could perform the magic that would bring the announced dates to reality. That was because the spade of work never correlated with the minister’s projections. Even now, the ministry is yet to fix at least a 12-kilometer stretch of the road spanning the Olorunsogo flyover in Ibadan to Ojoo, the terminal point. So, Minister Umahi’s decision to echo his brother, ex-Minister Fashola, by releasing another unrealistic dateline is a source of worry for road users.
I must confess that I feel deeply disconcerted anytime I have to write about or travel through the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway, especially since the flag off of the reconstruction by President Goodluck Jonathan on July 5, 2013. This is because I had taken more than a passing interest in the need for the Jonathan government to fix the road following the perpetually disturbing news that never ceased emanating therefrom.
Recall that the Federal Government had earlier entered into a Public-Private, Partnership (PPP) contract with the aim of fixing the road considered as the busiest in the country. While one cannot go into the merits and demerits of the contract and the Federal Government’s decision to terminate it, one thing was certain: lives were daily being lost on the road, and not a few also complained of the snail speed procession of the work.
As tragedy kept pilling on its kind as per daily occurrences on the road, the nation was counting its losses in human and material terms on the 127km stretch. It was either an articulated vehicle had fallen, blocking the road for hours or some petrol-laden tankers had burst into flames, spreading fire into passenger buses in its trail. Death was commonplace on the all-important road and hell was more than real to commuters.
I had to take on some self-imposed activism by repeatedly impressing some insiders in the Jonathan government that there were no alternatives to finding ways to end the carnage on that road. Each time the newspapers carried pictures and horrific stories of incidents on the road, I took it upon myself to supply extra copies to the office of the then Special Adviser to President Jonathan on Research, Documentation, and Strategy, the late Oronto Douglas, who was never tired of taking up the matter with his principal.
Eventually, on July 5, 2013, President Jonathan flagged off the reconstruction of the expressway under the supervision of the Federal Ministry of Works then led by Arc. Mike Onolememen. The road was split between Julius Berger Nigeria Plc and Reynolds Construction Company. Berger was to fix the portion from the old Lagos Toll-gate to Shagamu, while RCC was to take up the larger portion from Shagamu to Ojoo in Ibadan.
According to details released by the government, the contract sum was N167 billion and its duration was 48 months. Of that sum, the Federal Government undertook to pay N50 billion, while a consortium of financiers was to be midwifed to offset the balance. The government’s portion was accommodated in the 2014 and 2015 budgets at N25 billion each.
With President Muhammadu Buhari winning the 2015 election, the story changed and the PPP component got reversed as the Ministry of Works got the mandate to fix the road.
It should be heartrending that in 96 months, Minister Fashola was unable to fix the road originally earmarked for completion in 48 months. But a bigger note of caution should go to Umahi. Rather than announce datelines that are at variance with the reality on the ground, he must ensure that the ‘I’s are dotted and the ‘T’s are crossed before raising hopes on the much beleaguered Expressway
