As part of the routine debriefing by President Muhammadu Buhari (PMB) since he resumed office, the leadership of various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) have met with the President to appraise him of the goings on in the federal MDAs; some newsy items invariably follow such meetings.
Now, what is this second Niger Bridge and what is the truth I want to tell? Please hear me…
The second Niger Bridge has been concessioned under what is called a Public Private Partnership (PPP) – whereby a contractor has “partnered” with the federal government to Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) the completed bridge after the contractor had recouped his “investment” through tolling after some years.
The ICRC is the statutory body empowered to regulate all “partnerships” and concessions in which the government and any other legal persons are involved.
In the build-up to this PPP for the second Niger Bridge, I recall that Senator Chris Ngige was stridently against the project as packaged and delivered. At a meeting on Cameron Road in Ikoyi where he addressed some Igbo elite sometime in 2014, he lambasted the project, calling it a fraud and a Trojan Horse. He compared the “cost” of the bridge with that of the Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge of about the same length and called it outrageous. The PDP apparatchik and their leaders from the then Office of the Secretary to Government of the Federation (OSGF) under Senator Anyim Pius Anyim attacked Ngige and countered that the cost of the second Niger Bridge could not be the same with the Lekki- Ikoyi Bridge as the latter was not fortified for carrying trailers and the type of traffic the former would carry. Ignorant me, I was persuaded; in any case, Ngige could have been “talking politics”.
Alas, I was to receive a wake-up call when on July 1, 2015 the news broke about China opening the World’s Longest Ocean Bridge measuring 26.4 miles (about 42 kilometres) and costing just $1.5 billion (about N300 billion). Yes, the Jiazhou Bay Bridge of 42km over an Ocean cost $1.5 billion while the second Niger Bridge of less than 2 kilometres under this arrangee PPP was to cost $700 million. Wait for it; and as part of the obligations of the Federal Government to this PPP, N10 billion of our money has already been disbursed towards the “project”. These figures dazed me and put me on further inquiry about this PPP project.
My findings will shock you; under this PPP, the concessionaire/contractor would be entitled to “build and operate” the bridge by tolling for a period of 25 years. This appears quite fair if they are to recover their $700 million investment; but wait for it; without doing any “affordability study”, this contractor had fixed to collect a toll of N2,000 per saloon car, going up to N7,000 for trucks and trailers for a one time crossing. Now compare; we Lagosians are protesting N250 for Lekki bridge and N150 for Lekki/Epe toll gates, yet some shylock was planning, and with the connivance of some high ranking officials of the past administration, my good people of Eastern Nigeria and other users would have been yoked into a most extortionate “contract” for 25 years, and to a project that ordinarily should not have cost more than $70 million. Do the simple arithmetic with the cost of the Jiazho Bay Bridge which is across a more treacherous terrain like an ocean and you will know that those who conceived and delivered that project are the Victor Ludorum of rent seeking.
The truth is that PMB has neither revoked nor suspended the “contract” for the second Niger Bridge, what he has done as the official guardian of our commonwealth is to direct that the entire PPP be reviewed to ensure compliance with best practices and to protect long suffering Nigerians from the wickedness and greed of their long time oppressor brethren who feast on them like the vilest vampires.
Just imagine that the “over-priced” Lekki-Ikoyi Bridge (1.3km) cost N29 billion, while the second Niger Bridge (1.7km) was to cost N117 billion with the federal government providing additional N30 billion (N10 billion already released).
If it was the perspicacious debriefing of ICRC that caused the President to order the review of this most oppressive PPP contract, then the leadership of that agency must be commended and recommended for more oversight responsibilities as the Nigerian consumers continue to suffer the tyranny of service providers like the TELCOs, DISCOs and others who though ought to be regulated by Nigerian Communication Commission (NCC), National Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) etc still ride roughshod on prostrate citizens who can now look up to PMB for help.
In conclusion, one cannot help but wonder what the OSGF under Anyim did in preparation for the presentation of the EXCO papers for the approval by the EXCO for this warped and pernicious PPP which was to keep the people of Eastern Nigeria in perpetual hardship to “repay” the PPP consortium. Upon what data and materials did Anyim’s office make the recommendation or due diligence for a project so vital to “his people”? That, is the truth about the “second Niger Bridge”.
• Chief Azike is Principal Counsel and member of the Body of Benchers, Adroit Lex & Co., Marina, Lagos.