- After the campaign season, completing the 2nd Niger Bridge, and other crucial infrastructure nationwide is proving a forlorn hope
The Second Niger Bridge is fast becoming the troubling symbol of electoral emptiness. Thrice — 2006, 2011 and 2015 — its promised completion had raised voter adrenalin and delivered a confetti of votes, particularly from Nigeria’s political South East.
But as it was after those two previous electioneering seasons, it is now after the general elections of 2015: the politicians have reaped their votes. But the voters’ expectations on the bridge’s completion remain dashed.
Former President Olusegun Obasanjo first pulled the stunt in 2006, baiting Igbo votes for the 2007 elections. Goodluck Jonathan, Obasanjo’s protégé-turned-enemy, played the same card twice: 2011 and 2015. Although President Jonathan won in 2011, he didn’t deliver on the bridge. He lost in 2015, so he is in no position to do so. Meanwhile, the Second Niger Bridge idea was first mooted in 1979, which shows the bridge, as a vote-milking sop, dated back to the Second Republic (1979-1983)!
President Muhammadu Buhari may not have anchored his campaign on the bridge; and labours under no burden to deliver on any promise. But that does not vitiate the importance of completing a second bridge across the Niger.
For one, the present sole bridge is worse for wear. After its completion in 1965, and the repair on its damaged sections after the Civil War, expert opinion insists it may be past its prime. For another, it is a crucial link between Nigeria’s West and East — and that includes the eastern part of the South-South. It is therefore a critical socio-economic link.
But even if President Buhari wanted to act, it would appear there is little he could do. This is clear from the paucity of funds, which has seen vital construction works across the country grind to a halt. Work too has stopped on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which Jonathan presidency sources, at the heat of the election season, were trumpeting was moving ahead of schedule; and on the Shagamu-Ore-Benin Expressway.
On the work sites of both the Second Niger Bridge and Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the work gang has been demobilised. At the bridge site at Asaba (Delta State) and Ogbaru (Anambra State), no less than 50 ad hoc workers have been laid off; and more may follow. Heavy equipment too have been moved, reportedly pending the time funding would resume. It is the same story at the two ends of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, where Julius Berger (Lagos end) and RCC (Ibadan end) were taking charge. The plant houses at both facilities have also been shut.
Though President Jonathan said during the campaign that N10 billion had been spent on the Niger Bridge, thus underscoring his government’s resolve to complete it, the funding plan for the project had been unconvincing and rather controversial, particularly the bit about tolling the bridge. Many stakeholders had kicked against the plan, but were nevertheless upbeat that the dream was, at last, coming true. But alas!
Even if Jonathan had won, given the present economic meltdown which arose from his government’s wanton waste, throttling corruption and collapse of crude price in the global oil market, it is doubtful if work would have continued. That tends to suggest an electoral hoax.
That is squandering government’s social capital with the people. That explains the near-complete breakdown of trust between citizens and government. Such conduct must be condemned with all vehemence. A government that breaches the social contract only courts nothing but instability and eventual anarchy.
That is why the Buhari presidency should move fast, stop the financial bleeding and re-mobilise to site on these vital works as soon as possible. That is the only way the Nigerian state can save face against a progressively sceptical — if not outright cynical — citizens.
‘The Buhari presidency should move fast, stop the financial bleeding and re-mobilise to site on these vital works as soon as possible. That is the only way the Nigerian state can save face against a progressively sceptical — if not outright cynical — citizens’
