The rains have returned, bringing with them a familiar sense of dread. Nigeria’s roads, infamously dubbed ‘death-traps’, are once again claiming lives at an alarming rate. Across Nigeria, anguished cries rise after each tragic auto crash as families mourn loved ones lost or maimed.
Incidentally, over 70 per cent of Nigeria’s 60,000 kilometres of paved roads, out of a total network spanning 195,000 kilometres, are dilapidated. This is an unacceptable situation that demands immediate change.
Nigeria’s road crisis is even more glaring when compared to other African countries. South Africa boasts a network of 750,000 kilometres, with 158,124km paved. Egypt outpaces Nigeria with 101,576km of paved roads as of 2020. Nigeria falls dangerously behind, and the consequences are deadly.
The human toll is disturbing. The Federal Road Safety Corps reports a 7.0 per cent increase in road crash fatalities in 2024, with 5,421 lives lost, up from 5,081 in 2023. This rise in fatalities occurred despite a 10 per cent reduction in the total number of crashes, underscoring the severity of each incident.
The FRSC attributes these fatalities to reckless driving, overloading, fatigue, and tragic secondary incidents such as the scooping of fuel from fallen tankers, which alone claimed 411 lives last year.
The Nigerian Red Cross Society estimates that 200,000 Nigerians perish each year in road crashes. This cannot continue.
Nigeria has a rural road network of about 200,000km, 87 per cent of which are in very bad condition, per the World Bank.
The Minister of State for Works, Muhammad Goronyo, stated that over 35,000km of federal highways require alternative funding, as years of inadequate budgets have left gaping holes in the country’s infrastructure. Despite an allocation of N926.2 billion for road projects and N64.88 billion for maintenance in the 2025 budget, the rot is inescapable.
While the Tinubu administration has continued the Road Tax Credit Scheme, designed to harness public-private partnerships by converting 50 per cent of corporate tax liabilities into road funding, implementation has been sluggish.
The never-ending reconstruction of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, dragging on for over two decades, underscores government inertia and inefficiency. This affects other roads apart from the escalating costs.
Nigeria’s roads are notorious for poor maintenance and are exorbitantly expensive to build. Constructing a single kilometre of asphalt road can cost up to N1 billion, four times the African average.
Cost overruns are rampant, averaging 31.36 per cent, according to the Human Resource Management Academic Research Society. As the rainy season sets in, fears mount that many sections will simply wash away, compounding the crisis.
Bad roads are a magnet for crime. Kidnappers, armed robbers, and carjackers exploit the craters and bottlenecks, ambushing unsuspecting motorists.
Besides, these death-traps lead to a waste of valuable man-hours. Overloading and excessive tonnage of trucks cause premature deterioration of roads by exceeding the pavement’s designed bearing capacity.
This leads to increased stress on the road structure, resulting in rapid cracking, potholes, and ultimately, pavement failure.
The impact of overloaded trucks significantly reduces the lifespan of roads. It is common to see newly built roads caving in under pressure at different points. Roads are constructed without the enforcement of load capacity.
Roads should be built to last decades, while security infrastructure needs to be included in project designs to ensure equitable use of resources.
Areas where flooding periodically overwhelms roads should be reconstructed to take care of overflows from nearby rivers.
The poor maintenance culture in Nigeria is a debilitating factor that requires a sea change.
Apart from the centre, the state and local government should construct their roads to aid food sufficiency, security, social life and commerce.
