The Death Traps Called Nigerian Roads
BY TAI EJIBUNU-(PUNCH)-Governments at all levels (Federal, state and local) in Nigeria commit huge sums of money that run into
billions of Naira to road construction and rehabilitation. This is to facilitate easy movement of persons, goods and services, and to
also prevent accidents and carnage on the roads.
But the objectives of embarking on road construction and rehabilitation are not quite achieved, as no sooner than a road project
is completed and certified for use that it begins to fail. This has therefore belied the efforts of governments to put the roads in
proper shape in all seasons for the benefit of all and sundry.
The statistics of accidents on our roads are mind-boggling. Thousands of Nigerians have perished in road accidents as a result of
the roads’ nature and condition. The causes of road accidents are usually blamed on factors such as the recklessness of the
drivers and their penchant to disregard traffic rules and regulations; the states and condition of the roads; drunk driving;
inexperience on the part of drivers; tyre burst; reckless parking on highways; and state of vehicles.
While these factors are indisputable, however, some critical factors in road construction, which have correlation with road
accidents in Nigeria, have been left unnoticed. One of the factors is the mode and method of road construction by the various
contractors handling road projects in Nigeria.
It is an incontrovertible fact that most roads are constructed in Nigeria without proper consideration for factors like soil conditions
and type of materials to use during construction. These have often led to roads’ failure a few months after construction or
rehabilitation.
Roads like the Ipele-Kabba, Kabba-Obajana, Ilesa-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kaduna Expressway, Kaduna-Kano Expressway,
Ilorin-Kabba, Benin-Ore Expressway, Owo-Ikare and others too numerous to mention have failed in no time after a short period
of construction and rehabilitation. This has contributed significantly to road accidents, causing people to lose their lives and
property in the process.
Another factor that contributes to road accidents is poor engineering design of the roads. Most roads in Nigeria are constructed
without good engineering design that factors in the interest of non-motorists, especially People Living With Disabilities. Our roads
are constructed without walkways and paths for use by this class of people and other pedestrians. As a result, people get
knocked down by vehicles as a result of this lacuna.
The Wuse-Gwarinpa eight-lane road in Abuja is a classic example. People trying to cross from Zankli Hospital to the other side of
the Federal Ministry of Transportation and vice versa risk their lives every time. If a good engineering design was conceived at the
initial stage, it would have taken into consideration the interest of pedestrians that would want to cross the road, without getting
knocked down.
Also of note is the failure of most road contractors to do quality road work, thereby putting peoples’ lives in jeopardy. The desire
by road contractors to continue to milk government and get contract at all times make them do shoddy jobs. Notwithstanding the
quality of jobs done, some unscrupulous government officials issue job completion certificates.
In Abuja for instance, one would see that some of the roads handled by Julius Berger are not done with the type of quality which
the company is noted for. They left some road shoulders open where it is possible for erosion to start eating into them. This can
never happen in Germany, the home country of the construction giant.
If this can happen in Abuja, therefore, one can imagine what other road contractors might have done in remote areas of the
country!
It is also a matter of fact that road contracts are given to companies that do not have the competence and the required skills to
handle them. The most important thing is to know a very big person in a position of authority to be able to win road contract
awards. We often see such companies using manual labour to execute the jobs. This crop of contractors usually fail to deliver and
in the end, they abandon the sites. The reasons behind the award of the road contracts are never achieved, thus creating very
serious hardships for the people who are the end users.
It is in this light that one is calling for proper re-examination of road construction works in Nigeria, as it has a kind of symbiotic
relationship with road accidents that occur on a daily basis on our roads.
As a Nigerian who has lived in Austria and had visited the United States of America and some other European countries like Great
Britain, The Netherlands, Italy, Hungary and Belgium, I am exceedingly worried and at pain when I see the way road construction
or rehabilitation are executed in Nigeria. They do not follow the well known standards in the world.
In all the countries mentioned above, construction of roads is executed with high quality materials, which make the roads to last
for a very long time.
I travelled by road for eight hours from Houston, Texas, to Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in the United States without seeing a single
pot hole. Ditto my journey from Stadtschlaining/Burg in Austria to the cities of Venice, Florence and Rome in Italy.
As we are marching towards becoming one of the leading 20 economies in the world by 2020, it is time we started doing the right
thing by putting the necessary infrastructure in place, such as good road networks. It is then that we will be taken seriously in the
comity of nations.
Ejibunu, a graduate of the European University Center for Peace Studies, Stadtschlaining/Burg, Austria, wrote via babaeji@msn.
com.
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