By Usman D. Aliyu
President Muhammadu Buhari led APC administration has awarded 800 contracts since it came on board six years ago, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola has revealed.
Speaking when he featured at the weekly ministerial briefing organized by the Presidential Communication Team at the presidential villa, Abuja on the overview of his achievements in the ministry with pictorial presentation of projects, including ongoing and completed roads and bridges, across the country.
Fashola said, “The number of contracts awarded is 800 not 800 projects. Sometimes within a road you might have multiple contracts. For instance, Kano to Maiduguri there are five different contracts that are unique.
Said he:-“If you look at the Lagos Ibadan, there are two contracts there, for Enugu Port Harcourt there are five contracts there. So, each one has designated supervising project officer, so in that sense it is right to say we have 800 plus contracts.”
The minister said the work done consists of highways bridges, covering a distance of over 13, 000 kilometers, explained that government was yet to have a reliable data on housing deficit, adding that the rural-urban migration gave the false impression of housing shortages, but insisting that there was nowhere in the world where houses have been made adequate for all citizens.
He said while there was no shortage of housing in the rural areas, there were lots of empty, uninhabited buildings in the urban areas and that a country like Nigeria, with unoccupied houses in every city, could not be classified as having housing deficits.
His words: “Nigeria’s housing problems is the direct result of rural urban migration which has created a system of demand and supply problem in urban centers. It is illogical to say we have that housing deficit when you have empty houses. No such deficit exists anywhere in the world.”
The minister added that he attempted to investigate the source of the 17 million housing deficit claim by consulting with international organizations, including the World Bank and African Development Bank (AfDP) and confirmed that the reports were not authentic.
He said, “We are not in a housing crisis and this is the subject of a full discussion. My take is that the housing shortages, essentially, in all parts of the world, are in the urban centers and not in the rural areas. So, it is a problem that has come as a result of urbanization. People move from rural to urban centers and create a supply and demand problem.
“You will find that many of the people in urban centers like Abuja, Lagos, Kaduna, Abeokuta, etc, seeking to squat with somebody or trying to rent a house, have an empty home in his village.
“In the urban center again, you will see that there are still empty houses. We have to discuss housing on two paradigms of ownership and rentals, because no nation provides free housing for its citizens.
“The budget for roads in Nigeria in 2015 that we inherited was N18 billion for all Nigerian roads. 2015 was also the year that I left office as Governor of Lagos so the budget for Lagos State roads for that year was about N70 billion and it was not enough so I don’t see how 18 would have been enough for the whole of Nigeria.
“But the first roads budget for the Buhari administration was N260 billion the next, N240 billion, next N356 billion then we have come down to N233, N237 and so on and so forth. We are doing a lot more with less resources.”
Fashola also highlighted what the ministry has done in the past six years, even as he disclosed that six new federal secretariats arising from the creation of new states where assets were separated were currently being constructed.
“The ones in Anambra and Zamfara are the likely to finish this year. The one in Nasarawa and Bayelsa will run into probably next year while Ekiti is in the race to finish next year,” he said.
The Works and Housing Minister also stated that the administration has been able to confront roads that he tagged as stubborn, which are now being used by Nigerians.
“We have been able to execute some of Nigeria’s most difficult projects that have defied solution from previous administrations and one of them is the Lagos-Shagamu-Ibadan expressway, which has been there for long since 1999 and it was under this administration that construction started and I say that emphatically. Before that it was maintenance but we are nearing completion now.
“Bodo Bonny was awarded three times unsuccessfully but this is the forst time that actual construction is now going on; one bridge has been finished, second one is in progress and several kilometers of road network are already being constructed.
“And of course the 2nd Niger Bridge has been in the news for a long time especially during election campaign period nut now all of the structures, piles, everything is complete now it’s just to finish the deck and the link road to Owerri.
“Abuja-Kano-Kaduna highway was last acted upon in 1991; it was awarded I think in 1985 by the Babangida administration and since 1991 no action there but we are working on that now. Then who can forget the Apapa-Oworonshoki expressway where many containers had fallen down killing people and damaging properties in the process.
“Since 1975 when it was completed, nothing of substance has been done but now we have a final solution because it is now being fully reconstructed with concrete and 29 out of 35 kilometers have been completed.”