By Perpetua Onuegbu (NAN)
The Minister of State for Works and Housing, Mr Mua’zu Sambo says infrastructure is the bedrock for socio-economic development.
Sambo said this during the project site visit by a delegation of the Africa Road Builder and Federal Ministry of Works and Housing on Friday in Nasarawa.The project is the expansion of 5.4 km Abuja-Keff Expressway and Dualisation of Keffi Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi roads.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the visit by the delegates was part of the activities to conclude the Africa Road Builders-Trophy Babacar Nyiade inaugural conference 2022.The theme of the conference is Building Roads, Building Economies.
President Muhammadu Buhari was presented with the trophy of the winner of the 2021 Great Builder Super Prize.
According to Sambo, the Buhari administration has made infrastructure top priority both in terms of road, housing, rail transport, aviation, agriculture and education.
“The mining sector is being revamped and revived through various reforms in Nigeria for the first time.
“Infrastructure is the bedrock of socio-economic development and this project alone employs about 1,000 people within the communities where the project passes through.
“By the time this project is completed, travel time will be drastically reduced, perphaps by as much as two hours, and time you know is money.
“Government can earn revenue from it when it is completed and this revenue will be deployed to take care of socio-economic issues affecting the people, such as health, education, sanitation and what have you.
“So the socio-economic benefits of this road is massive,” he said.
Speaking on nature of the project, he said it was divided into four sections, and funded from a loan from the China Exim Bank with counterpart funding by Nigeria.
According to him, China Exim Bank is providing 85 per cent of the cost of the project and Nigeria is providing the balance of 15 per cent.
Sambo said government was optimistic that issues with compensation, especially on the Abuja-Keffi axis would soon be resolved and hopefully, the project would be completed by April 2023.
On the challenges and jurisdiction of Nigeria on border crossings by the Unit Manager Road Sector Development Team, Mr Ishaq Muhammed said there was no challenge in that regard.
“In terms of Lagos-Mombasa route corridor, Nigeria has an active collaboration jointly between the World Bank and African Development Bank, which they co-financed the route from Enugu to Unfun, the border town into Cameroon.
“While the Cameroonian authorities took a loan from the African Development Bank to develop their own section between Unfon and Ekok.
“At that border crossing, we developed a joint border bridge between Nigeria and Cameroon which we have just concluded.
“We are waiting for ECOWAS to finish operationalisation and equipping of the joint border post so that it will be fully utilised.
“All the protocols for the joint border crossing have been worked out with ECOWAS and the government of both countries,” Muhammed said.
Speaking on their impression of the projects, some members of the delegate Interviewed commended the Federal Government on the great strides it had achieved in the area of infrastructure.
Ms Carine Du Plessis, a South African Freelance journalist said she was impressed by the massive infrastructure she had seen during the visit.
“I am very impressed with what I have seen so far; Nigeria is really investing in its roads and this is quite commendable.“Unlike some roads in South Africa that are full of pothole, the only thing I abhor is the gridlock in Lagos.
“I think Lagos should be the headquarters of holdups in the world but it is not so in Abuja and I love the city.”
Mr George Orido, a Kenyan journalist and official spokesperson of Acturoutes, an information platform on infrastructure and roads in Africa, said there had been a lot of improvement from the last time he visited Nigeria.
He said compared to10 years ago that he was in Nigeria, the road infrastructure he saw was delightful and he congratulated the president and Nigerians for the progress made over the years.
NAN reports that the expansion of 5.4 km section of the Abuja-Keffi Expressway (Section 1) is to add two lane auxillary roads on both sides of the existing six lanes is at 66 per cent completion costs is at the cost of over 65 billion dollars.
While the Dual Carriage Road of the Keffi-Akwanga-Lafia-Makurdi (Section 2,3 and 4) is made up of 220 km located in Nasarawa and Benue states, is at 48 per cent completion with the cost of over 447 billion dollars.(NAN)