Since President Muhammadu Buhari was sworn into office six months ago, we have constantly urged him to constitute his cabinet and hit the ground running.
Now that the cabinet is in place, the onus falls on the three-in-one fused Ministry of Works, Housing and Power under Babatunde Fashola to deliver both the ruling party and the federal government’s campaign promises to meet the high expectations of the populace.
Nigeria’s 170 million population faces the haunting spectre of a stagflationary economy on the brink of spiraling into recession next year.
A massive, world class infrastructure construction programme is an urgent solution to create jobs, generate income, especially for as many of the 40 million to 50 million unemployed youths as possible.
Infrastructural provision has the added advantage of reflating the economy without aggravating the inflationary pressures.
However, with barely a month to the start of the dry season for construction work to bloom fully, the time for assembling world class construction companies, consultants and mobilising them to start work is really short.
Not to add getting the legislative approvals necessary for budget funds.
The good news is that assembling the construction companies, consultants and the relevant ministries’ supervisory staff are all familiar territory for Buhari and his economic team from his successful Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF) infrastructural rehabilitation years.
By July last year, the government of former President Goodluck Jonathan claimed it spent N1.469 trillion to construct 25,000 kilometres of federal roads into good and motorable condition in all the six geopolitical zones.
That left 10,000km of the total 35,000km of federal roads still as accident-prone death traps.
But that is not the story barely a year later, especially in the South East and South South. The federal, state and community roads are generally in a deplorable state of disrepair.
Last August, a Senate resolution drew up a tall list of bad roads, among others, which cut off whole communities in several areas of the country. Senators urged the Works Ministry and Federal Road Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to speed up rehabilitation works.
The tragedy is that the Jonathan government’s purported 25,000 kilometres of roads constructed are not given credit anywhere nationwide.
Thus, the toxic combination of badly-constructed roads and expressways with substandard materials and shoddy workmanship have met with bad road usage with overloaded vehicles, especially bulk haulage articulated trucks and tankers with goods best transported by rail.
These are the initial causes of rapid road deterioration after repairs. The bad federal roads and expressways require concrete construction nationwide with the ministry’s immediate attention.
The same world class standard construction must be extended to the state and community roads as well.
Well-constructed roads and expressways minimise the time road users take from their origins to destinations, accidents, wear and tear on vehicle engines as well as tyres, and cut fatigue in drivers and passengers.
Apart from bad roads, the huge slums which pass for cities in Nigeria outside Abuja need urban renewal. The capital’s satellite slums are no different either.
Wide, open gutters with dirty, stagnant water line up the streets as throwbacks to a primitive colonial era which urban renewal would eradicate.
House deficit in the country is about 17 million.
Expanding the cities horizontally merely multiplies the cost of extending infrastructural services to residents while more man-hours are wasted in traffic by commuters to their places of work.
High rises now provide dual purpose buildings with both residential accommodation and offices around the world.
Nigeria is at the confluence of preparations meeting opportunity.
Dangote Group has led an industry revolution in cement production to power the accelerated concrete expressway construction and its 52R grade of cement is ready for high-rise building construction.
We hope, as the media dubbed him, Super Minister Fashola and his team will cope with the gigantic task ahead within very limited time.