By Banji Ayoola
At last, reprieve seems to be on the way of commuters plying the deplorable Akure – Ado Ekiti Road as the Federal Government has re-awarded the reconstruction of the road.
The minister of State for Transportation, Prince Ademola Adegoroye, dropped the hint in a statement on Thursday by his spokesman, Prince Ebenezer Adeniyan, who also assured that “the new contractors will soon mobilise to site to begin work on the road.”
For about six years, commuters between the neighbouring Ondo and Ekiti States, had experienced agony due to the dilapidated road, forcing them to abandon the road altogether for alternative routes, thus aggravating their burdens and crippling the socio economic activities along the usually busy road.
Before the road collapsed, a trip on it used to take about 45 minutes. But now, commuters between Akure and Ado Ekiti spend close to five hours on alternative roads, which also are dilapidated, before getting to their destinations after suffering so much discomfort.
To worsen their agonies, one of the alternative routes, the Ilawe – Ado Road has caved in, forcing commuters to divert through bushes.
For over five years, the highway, which is the shortest link between the two state capitals, has now become a nightmare to travelers.
In fact, motorists traveling from Akure to Ikere-Ekiti and Ado-Ekiti, as well as other Ekiti communities, have since been taking a longer route through Igbara-Oke before accessing Ekiti State.
It is on record that for these years, killings, kidnappings, robbery, raping and terrible motor accidents, have become common occurrences, with criminals having a field day on the deplorable Akure – Ado Ekiti Road.
Adeniyan, in the statement, confirmed that President Muhammadu Buhari has already approved a new funding structure for the reconstruction of the road.
He said that the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the reconstruction of the road among other roads across the country, which are be fixed through the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) Tax Credit Scheme.
While commending the President, Works and Housing minister, Babajide Fashola, he particularly praised the people of both Ondo and Ekiti States for their patience, assuring that the funding challenges which had stalled the project had been resolved.
According to the statement: “Prince Adegoroye, who had made the reconstruction of the road one of his priorities since he assumed office as Minister, expressed relief that the project would fully take off soon.
“The Minister also commended the efforts of the Minister of Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, and other members of the FEC for their support on the project.
“The road contract, which had been awarded to Dantata and Sawoe in 2020, faced funding challenges, just as road users have been experiencing hardship on the dilapidated road.
“The Minister also commended the efforts of the Governor of Ondo State, Arakunrin Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN, CON and the former Governor of Ekiti State, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, to drive the attention of the federal government to the road.
“He said the Akure – Ado road project would be a major benefit for both Ondo and Ekiti States from the unprecedented 100 federal road projects embarked upon by the Muhammadu Buhari administration and currently ongoing across the country.
“Prince Adegoroye, while appreciating the good people of Ondo and Ekiti States for their patience on the condition of the road in the last few years, said the new contractors will soon mobilise to site to begin work on the road.”
The reconstruction project, initially awarded to Dantata and Sawoe for N30billion had been stalled over alleged failure of the Federal Government to release money. Before the project was terminated, government released a paltry N2 billion, forcing the contractor to drag the Federal Government to court.
Immediate past Ekiti State governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, had last year in an interview with Freedom Online confirmed that only N2 billion was released by the Federal government to the contractor.
A frustrated Fayemi had said that “out of the N30 billion the road was awarded, the first year, 2021 or 2020, they gave the contractor N400m out of N30b. So, the contractor used the N400m to mobilise to the site.
“The Federal Government had refused to cede the road project to the affected states.
“I have spent the last three years on the subject of this road. I finally got them to award the dualisation in November 2019 at the cost of N30 billion. To date, the contractor has only received N2 billion.
The former governor had added that he and his brother Ondo state counterpart, Mr Oluwarotimi Akeredolu had jointly approached the African Development Bank (AfDB) to seek financial support for the road but regretted that their efforts were thwarted by the Federal Government which had insisted it was a federal road.
According to him, the road would have since been reconstructed by Ondo and Ekiti States if the Federal Government had allowed the sister states’ governments to reconstruct the road and toll it, saying: “We offered to do that, but the FG refused.”
Following are extracts from the interview with Freedom Online titled “Fayemi: I got AfDB support to fix Akure-Ado-Ekiti Road, FG stopped it” which was published on October 21, 2020:
Traveling to Ekiti from neighbouring states, the roads are appalling. Why couldn’t you use your influence as Chairman of Governors’ Forum or as a former minister in the ruling party to fix some of the roads?
First, the immediate response is that we are unhappy about the condition of the Federal roads linking Ekiti to other states and we have decided, as a policy, to take over those roads, using my network and influence, just as I said about development partners, we got money from development partners, we got in principle support from the African Development Bank to reconstruct the Akure – Ado-Ekiti road and dualise it. But the owners of the road – the FG – blatantly refused.
Federal Ministry of Works?
Yes, the owners of the road said ‘leave our road alone and if you do it, you cannot toll it and we will not refund you. Just stay off our roads.’ This started in 2018. I was able to convince President Akinwumi Adesina of AfDB to support the reconstruction of the road because of his own experience traveling on the road when he came to receive a honorary degree from Afe Babalola University and on his way back, he called me and said ‘Kayode, I’ve just traveled on your road to catch my flight. This is horrible’.
What was your response?
I said Mr President, you’re correct and I gave him the story of the road and asked him for money (to fix the road), that’s what I’m looking for.’ And then we started talks on the road and other projects in Ekiti. I went to Abidjan and Dr Adesina pledged to support us but the Federal Government insisted we could not do it. I am sure you can guess which of my friends. You know who my friend is. He’s the friend I was in cabinet with, who was also our captain when we were all Governors in the South-West.
Does he have the final say on such matters?
Well, I happen to know that they have a Federal Executive Council policy that after paying more than half a billion as refund to states (before I came in), for roads that have been reconstructed by states, a position was taken at FEC, that henceforth, no state should do Federal roads, that they (Federal Government) would fix their roads and they won’t pay any refund to anyone for any unauthorised road reconstruction. In fairness to the government, it was only President Buhari that ever refunded payments for roads since 1999, and it was across board, it was not selective, it was not partisan.
The person who took the highest chunk of the money was Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State who took over N70 billion for refund of roads fixed by previous Rivers governors. So, you could understand where they were coming from. But it is still inexcusable in this particular instance because we had money. Because they (Federal Government) are the sovereign, African Development Bank cannot give Ekiti money unless the Federal Republic of Nigeria signs off on the money. So, we then conceded and I then asked the Minister of Works and Housing (Babatunde Fashola), what if we transfer the money to you? The important thing is, fix our road. It doesn’t matter whether it is Ekiti that took money or you.’
So, what happened?
Then we started another round (of talks) and we transferred the ownership of whatever is coming from AfDB to the Federal Government. The Minister of Finance got it and said okay, she would sign – this is just paperwork, the money had not come – transferred it back to them, they took possession. AfDB then said fine, it will still be in the Nigerian portfolio. The Federal Government can take it, but in taking it, you must comply with our procurement process. This is global standard procurement process. The Federal Government agreed but the road had by now been awarded by FEC to Dantata and Sawoe. So, they accepted to take it over.
But, the road has not been fixed?
Out of the N30 billion the road was awarded, first year, 2021 or 2020, they gave the contractor N400m out of N30b. So, contractor used the N400m to mobilise to site. They got their equipment, vehicles, etc. The following year, N1billion was earmarked for the project in the budget and they started some work. We wanted to do a road, we looked for money to do it, we ran into headwinds and the question to ask yourself is, what is this thing called federal roads anyway? Because Ekiti people are asking why the roads are bad. They don’t know the difference between federal roads and state roads.
As far as they are concerned, the governor is the closest person to them, he’s the one they will hold responsible, even if he does not know anything about it, we will hold him responsible. That is the problem we face. The roads that are not ours, that we wanted to take responsibility for and fix, we were unable to. Yet, we still carry the can, we are the ones being held responsible by the people. They are right. They shouldn’t have to worry themselves that one road is Federal, the other is state, another is local; that is too much stress for the ordinary citizen, they just want roads to be fixed. So, that’s the context of the problem we are grappling with. It is unfortunate. Now, we have shifted, because they are not ready to follow the AfDB procurement process. The AfDB is still asking for updates up till now.
Any alternative?
We are now chasing the NNPC, because the NNPC has also started its own tax credit roads. So, working with the Ministry of Works and NNPC, we have put Ado Ekiti – Akure on the tax credit road, just last week, with the hope that they would accelerate the work and it would still be under the purview of the Federal because that’s what we did for the road between Omuo and Kabba, which we got Dangote to sign up to for tax credit and extend the one they did from Obajana to Kabba to Ekiti boundary. So that’s the nature of our Federal system.
