Why bad federal roads litter Northern Nigeria

Bad federal roads exist in northern Nigeria because state governments have refused to fix them and demand a refund of the costs from the federal government, former Kaduna senator, Shehu Sani, has said.

Mr Sani, a former senator, made this comment on his official Facebook page on Monday where he blamed state governors of being lackadaisical towards fixing federal roads.

“Many northern states with bad federal roads over the years either refused to rebuild them and ask for refund from the federal government or refused to engage consultants or experts to quantify and cost the roads they rebuild and submit it to the President or Federal Ministry of Works for refund.

“Even those who managed to submit claims did a very bad job. So shocking was that many states in the north never even cared to submit a ‘request for refund’ to the FG.”

The ex-lawmaker said states like Kano made claims of N4 billion and Niger State made claims of less than N400 million while states from the South-south and South-east made claims ranging from N40 billion to over N100 billion and they were paid by the federal government.

“In fairness to the President, he has asked all states with bad roads to submit claims and the FG has been repaying them.

“Some governors go to the Villa with serious proposals and agenda for their states, some go there only to pray and gossip. As the immediate past Chair of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debt, I have the statistics of the claims made by all the states,” he added.

Mr Sani’s remarks come barely 24 hours after President Muhammadu Buhari asked the National Assembly to approve N148 billion for Ondo, Bayelsa, Cross River, Osun and Rivers states for refund for federal road projects executed by the states on behalf of the federal government.

Similar approvals totalling about N126 billion were made to Kogi, Bauchi, Delta and Taraba states in 2019.

Bauchi, Kogi and Taraba are states in the north of Nigeria while Delta is an oil-rich southern state.