Behold, and Reconsider -By Sesugh Akume

I got tired complaining and contemplating alternatives to what was generally obtainable in our backward society to no avail, so decided to run for office in the last election cycle to demonstrate what could be, beyond talking. I tried but didn’t make it as house of representatives member on the platform of my party, ANRP (Abundant Nigeria Renewal Party).

One of the issues that kept tugging at my heart for which I decided to run for office was the state of infrastructure within and leading to Sankera, my constituency, in Benue. Neither could I stand the deceit associated with it. For instance, I couldn’t believe my eyes when Babatunde Fashola, the minister of power, works, and housing (as he then was), listing roads and bridges across the country for emergency repairs and rehabilitation included completely nonexistent bridges that lead to Sankera. Shortly afterwards, he confirmed that contractors had been paid and so had no excuses. Some of the projects he named were the same very ones I had seen provided for in budgets of previous years as new projects, but with nothing to show for it. My campaign promises as a candidate included digging into this to find out the truth once and for all, and possibly, through that process, get us what is ours. We couldn’t have a dearth, or in fact, the complete absence of such infrastructure but see otherwise said in the media and in official records.

I did not win, so owed no one this effort, but I have been unable find rest in my heart on this particular issue, (as one or maybe two others) so I did an FoI (Freedom of Information) request at the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing in this regard. I wanted to know the current status (including the percentage of work done so far), name of the contractors, cost of the contracts, the duration, number of staff foreign and local, the scope of work, etc, for some key roads and bridges that link to Sankera. What I found out left me ashamed.

I would talk about the federal government’s response on the rehabilitation of the completely nonexistent Quata Sule, and Buruku bridges at another time. Perhaps, also, the Makurdi – Gboko, Gboko – Katsina-Ala, Calabar – Ugep – Katsina-Ala roads also, at another time. Let me focus today on 2 bridges.

Rehabilitating the Makurdi, and Katsina-Ala bridges each 1 kilometer long will employ 2 expatriates each along with 60 and 50 Nigerians respectively, and will take 2 years to complete. TWO FULL YEARS! To rehabilitate 1-kilometer roads. Roads, because they aren’t constructing new bridges like erecting piles from the river beds up, or rehabilitating those, they are only working on the flat surface. So, they’re just fixing the roads, ie the surfaces, and accompanying accoutrements. I then spoke to an expert transportation and highway engineer who though wanting to be modest and sympathetic to the bureaucracy admitted that from the scope of work, truly, it should take at most 6 months to complete both projects. I personally think it’s something to be completed in days, or at the very most, weeks, not months. I explained my perspective and he admitted that I was right.

The Katsina-Ala bridge, for instance, is in the budget year in year out but to no outcome, but then who is watching? Who is asking the right questions? Where does the money go? Now that the contract has been finally awarded and announced, it’s billed to last February 2019 – February 2021 according to the federal government’s own timeline. Presently, in September, as we are now, it is at under 4% completion, according to them. This is against the 29% it should be, at 7 of the 24 months target. What does this tell us? Except otherwise, in 2 years all we’ll hear will be stories, as clearly, they are nowhere close to their own target. At that time, in 2 years even the sections fixed would need revisiting. That is if the project is not abandoned altogether.

Recall that this Katsina-Ala bridge is among the roads and bridges earmarked for EMERGENCY rehabilitation. We have no sense of mission or urgency. This is a bridge that connects northeast Nigeria with entire southern Nigeria, but who cares? It connects the region that produces the largest quantity of yams in the world to the rest of the country. But again, who cares? It makes me wonder, what if this wasn’t an emergency rehabilitation? Maybe it’d take forever? If simply fixing a 1-kilometer road takes 2 years, how many decades would constructing a 1-kilometer bridge take? Maybe constructing an underground train tunnel, which the British completed and launched as far back as January 1863, 156 years ago, would take us a thousand years if we began today? Lovers of mediocrity we are. We also have no shame.

If you had the dream of Nigeria working in your lifetime, behold the mirror before you and consider the reality of what we are faced with.