Ekiti Roads and Us - By Dr Kayode Fayemi

There are complaints about the general state of roads in Ekiti and those leading to it from neighbouring states. People share horrible travel experiences every time, especially about the Ado-Akure road. Why is this so?

"Let’s start by saying the road infrastructure in our country today is not in the best of shape. Ekiti is not an island and we have our own share of bad roads. But I must also say that a lot of the roads in question suffer from the invidious confusion brought about by our unique federalism. The major roads that people complain about in Ekiti State today – Ado-Akure road is a federal road adjoining two state capitals; Ado-Ifaki-Otun road is also a federal road; Osun boundary to Aramoko to Ado-Ekiti, also a federal road; Ado-Ekiti to Ikare via Agbado and Aisegba is also a federal road.

Uploading: 24110 of 24110 bytes uploaded.Virtually all state roads in Ekiti are fine. But we have also intervened in the federal roads. I will give you the unique example of Ado-Akure road that you asked about. When I assumed office in 2018, I was very, very agitated about the condition of the road, and I took it up with my friend, the president of the African Development Bank, Akinwumi Adesina, who had also travelled on that road, when he came to receive an honorary doctorate degree from Afe Babalola University, and he agreed to help us.

Of course, this was going to be a request for credit from the African Development Bank, and we did everything that was necessary: we produced the feasibility report, design of the road, the environmental impact assessment, among others. At the time we were going to start, I informed the federal minister of works: ‘We want to work on your road. We have support from the African Development Bank. Should we go ahead to do it?’ If you know Minister Fashola very well, he’s a serious-minded individual. He’s not given to emotional attachment.

He wrote back to me and said, ‘Governor, leave our road alone. If you touch our road, we’ll not pay you any refund.’ I said that’s okay, and I asked if the Ekiti and Ondo governments could toll the road to recoup whatever had been expended on it to pay the loan that we would have gotten from the African Development Bank. The response was: ‘No, don’t toll our road.’ But I didn’t leave it at that, I said, ‘Tunde, you’re my brother. You’ve travelled on this road yourself. Are you going to take it over? I’ll ask the African Development Bank to give the money to the Federal Government of Nigeria, and he agreed. He said, ‘Okay, let’s work on that. We’d award the road.’ True to his promise, the road was awarded in 2019 or 2020 to Dantata and Sawoe.

As with many roads awarded by the Federal Ministry of Works, there are funding challenges. It’s 18 months now that, that road has been awarded. The AfDB in principle agreed to the transfer from Ekiti to the federal government, but they insisted that due process must be followed. Everything I’m telling you has taken the better part of 24 months – back and forth. Eventually, we had to recommission the feasibility study, and we had to bring road specialists from South Africa. Ekiti bore all the cost.

In fact, about a month or two ago, I just sent the minister the final environmental impact assessment. He read it and got back to me. Meanwhile, the three of us: the Federal ministry of works, the senior director of African Development Bank in Nigeria and myself, are having regular meetings on this. Eventually, the money will be released. But the average user of that road does care about this explanation I’ve given you. They are not even aware of the difference between federal and state roads. ‘I have a governor here; he’s not doing his job. Period!’ And this is happening all over the country.

But you can also understand the reluctance of the federal to refund claims by state governments for their work on federal roads. Over the last three years, I would say, the (President Muhammadu) Buhari administration had done an unprecedented thing: all the federal roads constructed since Obasanjo’s administration, Yar’Adua and Jonathan, up to Buhari, constructed by states, no president paid for those roads. No refunds. The Buhari administration must have paid close to 1 trillion naira as refund to states, and it was on the basis of this that I believe the Federal Executive Council took the decision that the federal government will no longer pay for roads not approved prior to the work being done.

So that’s the challenge we’re dealing with. It’s a challenge that we have to address. For our people, the primary interest is for the roads to be fixed. What’s also more difficult? You talked about Ekiti roads, which are suffering from what you can call double jeopardy. Ekiti State roads are some of the best roads in the South West and they are being damaged by heavy-duty trucks using Ekiti to connect the northern parts of the country. That’s part of the challenge that we’re dealing with. It’s one that’s not going to go away in a hurry, but we must address it. We must meet our people at the point of need. I’ve just awarded one of the federal roads now, in spite of the fact that I know Ekiti may not get a refund. We’ve decided we have to fix it. That’s all we’re doing in the larger interest of the people.