President Muhammadu Buhari has a huge task before him. Delivering a cargo
of campaign promises and clearing a cumulative heap of mess left by his
predecessors is the huge task. Nigeria’s problem is like heirloom, passed
from one generation to another.
I do not doubt the president’s stamina, good health, but I doubt his
having enough time and resources to deliver the huge consignment
registered in his campaign waybill.
The focus today is on the Utopian promises made to Nigerians in the
transport sector during campaign.
The APC manifesto promised that Buhari would “Embark on a National
Infrastructural Development Programme that will ensure the construction
of 3,000km of Superhighway including service trunks and building of upto
4,800km of modern railway lines.”
Good idea. The Buhari administration is already six months old, which is
quite significant in a period of four years. The delay in the take off of
governance had, undoubtedly, taken a toll on his administration. The
problem with ruling a country like Nigeria is that a president serves a
term of four years – or at best eight years. So whatever a president
does, he must be conscious of time.
The whole nation is in a chronic state of disrepair. The healthcare
sector needs health, power needs emergency, education needs overhaul, the
economy needs revamping, the oil sector needs transparency, agriculture
needs reinvigoration, security needs tightening, name it. The whole
nation beggars attention.
Conversant with the aforesaid problems, the president promised Nigeria
3,000 kilometres of SUPERHIGHWAY and 4,800 kilometres of MODERN railway
lines during his campaign.
With the delay in the take off of the government itself, a biting
economic condition, a slump in oil prices – and a nomadic presidency to
boot – how feasible is attaining the 3,000 kilometres of even laterite
overlay? 3,000 kilometres is, roughly, a distance from Kano to Cairo, Egypt.
How possible is it to lay asphalt from Kano to Cairo in three and half
years?
Now, Buhari promised us 4,800 kilometres of modern railway lines, which
may include tunnels (where possible), standard gauge lines, air-
conditioned coaches, etc. Let us ask ourselves again, how possible is
this in the next three-and-a-half years?
Nigeria’s current rail system, in its entirety, is 3,500 kilometres.
Nigeria’s first railway started with 96 kilometres in 1898 between Lagos
and Abeokuta, and the coverage grew up to 3,500 kilometres today.
But APC promised to build 4,800 kilometers of rail lines – to beat the
record achieved in 117 years – in three and half years!
Sometimes we only appreciate people when they have left office. Looking
at our current realities, attaining meaningful development appears a
mirage today. With hindsight, Nigeria may yet have a Third Mainland
Bridge or a Kano-Abuja highway or an ABU or an Ife.
With our congenital slowness in executing projects, coupled with a sloth in the saddle, I doubt the
possibility, even if we have the ability.
Even in advanced countries, such mega constructions, especially in the
transport sector, take reasonable time to complete. In Australia, a 70km
metro line was added into the country’s metro lines in 2007. The
parliament approved the project in 1999, work begin in 2004, and in late
2007, a MODERN railway line called Mandurah Line was built in Perth,
Australia.
As Fashola once pointed out, 4,800 kilometre is approximately the
distance from Nigeria to London (4,764km).
It is also the distance from
Abuja to Paris (4,437km). With our economic realities, how can we build
4,800 kilometres of Lugardian railways in even eight years?
To buttress a point on our knack for abandoning projects, Abuja
Millennium Tower is a good example. Nigeria started building the towers
during Obasanjo in 2006, and for nine years today, we have not been able
to finish the construction of just two concrete pillars with a grotesque
glass capsule.
Interestingly, the tallest building in the European Union, the Shards of
London, was completed between 2009 and 2012 – with all its 95 floors, 40
elevators, among others. When I visited the place in 2014, a mixed sense
of envy and ire overwhelmed me. I remembered shards of broken promises
that make our road to the promised land hazardous. I remembered the
hovering cranes constructing two concrete pillars for eight years in
Abuja.
Ajaokuta Steel project contract was signed in 1979, with 1986 set as the
date of completion. Ajaokuta Steel company is still under construction
despite having gulped $5billion! If we had policy consistency and the
project was completed on time, it would have simply cost Nigeria
$650million. So far there are estimated 12,000 abandoned federal
government projects dotting the country, with some started as far back as
45 years ago.
Late President Yar’Adua started the River Niger dredging project,
President Jonathan abandoned it. President Jonathan started Second Niger
and Second Benue bridges, Buhari may hardly give them attention. I didn’t
go through Buhari’s 2016 budget draft to know whether the projects are
captured, but I doubt if there will be much pragmatic commitment even if
they reflect in the budget.
Asides building 3,000 kilometres of road and 4,800 kilometres of railway
lines, President Buhari also promised to “Encourage and financially
support States with sprawling urban centres to embark on intra city metro
lines and bus systems.”
Buhari may have the zeal, but he definitely does not have the time and
resources to execute his “4,800 kilometres of railway” as well as – wait
a minute – “support states” to establish metro and bus lines.
Another promise is to “Improve and modernise our aviation infrastructure,
ensuring all our airports and aircrafts are compatible with international
safety standards.”
Well, modernising our decaying aviation infrastructure is a call for
general overhaul, I so interpret. The Minister of State for Transport
(Aviation), Hadi Sirika, should doodle this promise in his notebook to
make it achievable for Mr. President – in three-and-a-half years.
Other promises captured in the party manifesto are to “Renovate, enlarge
and modernise the nation’s ports to cope with growing maritime traffic;
construct two deep sea ports and; create a functional inland waterway
transport system.”
I really have no idea about what it takes to build “two deep sea ports”
or “functional inland waterway transport system”, what I am clear about
is that body language cannot build a sea port. The president must act
high and mighty.
I just hope he will sit at home to face our domestic challenges.
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