As Federal Roads in South-South Get Worse…

Etim Etim laments the deplorable state of federal roads in the South-South region despite the zone’s huge contributions to the Federation Account.

Despite their huge hydrocarbon deposits and massive contributions to Nigeria’s foreign exchange earnings, the six states of the South-South geopolitical zone have the worst network of federal roads in the country. Nothing has been done to fix the situation in the last 10 years or more.

Apart from the recently completed 40-km highway linking Bonny Island with Rivers State (Bonny-Bodo Road) which was awarded by the Buhari administration, this region has not had a major investment in federal road infrastructure for over 25 years.

Before the Bonny-Bodo highway, the last time a federal highway was constructed in the region was in the early days of the Obasanjo administration when Benin-Asaba expressway was built.

A son of the soil, Chief Tony Anenih, from Edo State, was then Minister of Works. Under President Goodluck Jonathan, another Edo son, Mike Onolememen also served as the Minister of Works. Appointed in July 2011, he served till Jonathan left office in 2015. Unfortunately, the Jonathan administration did very little or nothing in terms of federal roads in the region.

Since 2001 when the Benin-Asaba Highway was opened, all federal roads in the South-South region have fallen into a terrible state of disrepair.

Last week, a video of travelers clearing bush paths in Delta State to allow the buses in which they were travelling to meander out of a traffic logjam caused by bad spots on the Benin-Asaba Road provided the most touching evidence yet of the ordeal the people of South-South and South East have been going through.

Travelers were stranded for days near Agbor in Delta State. Men, women and children had to sleep in the bush and in their buses because they could not proceed on their journey to and from Lagos. They prayed, cursed and lamented for four days. Such nightmares explains why many Nigerians do not like their country.

When David Umahi, Minister of Works, eventually showed up on the road, he blamed the concessionaire who was contracted to reconstruct the road on the basis of Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT). “You manipulated the process to get the job. You have no knowledge of road construction. You don’t know what you are doing. You have no technical staff or competence,” Umahi told the Chief Executive Officer of the Benin-Asaba Expressway Concession Company (BAECC), Samuel Daramola, accusing him of lacking the basic technical capacity to execute a major highway project.

At the heart of Umahi’s frustration was BAECC’s decision to strip existing asphalt off sections of the highway without first constructing adequate side drainage — a move he said exposed the road to erosion and effectively destroyed public infrastructure. “The Ministry of Works does not allow the removal of asphalt. We begged them not to remove it. The concessionaire should have been arrested for destroying public property,” Umahi said, adding that he had since directed the ministry to arrest any concessionaire found removing asphalt from federal roads without authorization going forward.

Turning to the commuters who have borne the brunt of the crisis, Umahi offered a direct apology. “I apologize to commuters plying this road. I am disappointed with the concessionaire. I take full responsibility for their misdeed and destruction of public assets,” he said.

He confirmed that President Bola Tinubu had personally directed the Ministry of Works to intervene urgently, and that the Federal Government would bring in competent contractors — including China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) — to carry out emergency repairs and make the road motorable in the short term, particularly around the worst-hit sections near Asaba.

In defending himself, Daramola attributed his sloppy work to heavy rainfall and the huge volume of traffic on the highway, insisting that he was committed to completing the project. Umahi, however, announced that a stakeholders’ meeting would be convened to review the concession arrangement and assess whether BAECC is complying with the terms of its agreement.

The Benin-Asaba Highway was contracted to BAECC in 2025 as part of plans to transform it into a 10-lane expressway, with toll gates expected to become operational by September 2027, allowing the company to recoup its investment and maintain the road for 25 years.

But the Asaba-Benin Road is not an isolated case of a major road failure in the zone. Federal roads like Benin-Sapele; Benin-Warri; Port Harcourt-Aba-Enugu; Ikot Ekpene-Umuahia and Calabar-Itu-Uyo are in terrible states. In July, Senator Adams Oshiomhole openly accused Umahi of regional bias and neglect of the federal roads in Edo and Delta States. During a plenary session on July 29, Oshiomhole stated that major highways such as Auchi – Okene; Benin – Auchi; Benin-Warri; Benin-Asaba have become impassable.

He criticized the Ministry of Works under Umahi for seeking approval and funding for dozens of new road projects while older, critical economic corridors remain completely neglected. Former Governor Donald Duke and many other leaders and commentators in the zone have also made the same point.

Clearly, Umahi has paid very little attention to federal roads in the South-South. He seems more engrossed with the Lagos-Calabar coastal road which was awarded to HiTech Construction without following due process. He has also constructed several major roads in the South East and Ebonyi State, his home state, in particular which explains why Oshiomhole accused him of ‘’regional bias’’.

But Umahi is far better than Rotimini Amaechi who was Minister of Transportation under President Buhari with responsibility to building rail networks in the country. Amaechi did not build a single rail line in the whole of South-South and South East. He did not only favour the South West and Northern Nigeria, but also went further to establish University of Transportation in Daura, Buhari’s village.

With the 2027 elections approaching, Amaechi, now ADC Vice Presidential running mate, will find it difficult to convince the people of these two regions to vote for him.

-Etim writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom state