The Peoples Democratic Party and the Action Congress of Nigeria are bickering over the alleged award of road contracts by the Governor Abiola Ajimobi-led government in Oyo State for about N1 billion per kilometre.
While the ACN in Oyo State, in a statement by its spokesperson, Hon. Dauda Kolawole, picked holes in the position of those opposed to Ajimobi’s contract award, the PDP said that its National Vice Chairman, Engineer Segun Oni, as governor of Ekiti State, constructed roads for far less, even in virgin areas.
The PDP statement, signed by Oni’s media aide, Lere Olayinka, said it stood by its position that the ACN in the South West was plunging the region into huge and embarrassing debts with its spending pattern.
Olayinka said “it is only in ACN controlled states that 1km of road is being done for outrageous amount ranging from N400 million to over N1 billion.”
Reacting to the comment by the Oyo State chapter of the ACN that township roads in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, awarded at N5.8 billion was not 4km as claimed but 9.52km, Olayinka said: “It is ridiculous that a road that already has an existing one-lane will be called dualisation, while in actual fact, what is being added is another one lane.”
“Even assuming but not conceding that the road in question is actually 9.25km, isn’t it scandalous that a 9.25km of road was awarded to Bola Tinubu’s Hitech Construction Company at N5.8 billion? Even in water-logged Niger-Delta Area, is one kilometre of road being constructed for over N600 million as being done in ACN controlled Southwest States?
“When Segun Oni was governor of Ekiti State, he awarded dualisation of 19km Ado-Iworoko-Ifaki, a near virgin road for a little above N6 billion. The contract was inclusive of Street Lights from Ado to Ifaki. It is also on record that apart from Ado-Iworoko-Ifaki dualisation, the average cost per kilometre of road awarded by the Oni-led government was N37 million. These roads are still being used up till now and they are in very good condition.
“It is therefore alarming that even as admitted by the ACN itself, ‘Challenge Roundabout-Efunsetan Roundabout area, measuring 350m, will cost N509,003,659.36.’ 350m of road costing N509 million? That can only happen under an ACN-controlled government!”
While reiterating the PDP’s call to the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Security and Exchange Commission and other financial clearing houses to do everything possible to checkmate the rate at which the ACN-controlled states in the South West are obtaining loans, Olayinka said: “It is on record that Ogun State is on the verge of taking N100 billion Bond, Osun State alone is owing over N120 billion, Ekiti is owing over N30 billion and is rumoured to be planning to take another N30 billion while Lagos State government was said to have, as at June 30, 2012, accumulated an external debt profile of $517,677,672 (more
than half a billion dollars), despite having a monthly revenue of about N23 billion.
“It is therefore on this note that we are calling on well meaning Yoruba people to intervene in the affairs of the region by preventing these ACN governors from mortgaging the future of our children through frivolous loans because most of the loans being obtained and projects being financed by the contractors with bank guarantee and promissory notes by the ACN State governments cannot be paid back in the next 50 years.”
The ACN, Oyo State chapter, said that it had serious doubt that ever attended an engineering school, tasking the Nigerian Society of Engineers to critically conduct an enquiry into his claim of being one of them.
The ACN spoke against the backdrop of the former governor’s criticism of a road dualisation contract recently awarded by the Oyo State Government.
Kolawole said it was amazed by what it called the former governor’s “engineering illiteracy” as well as his “infectious mischief” which it said were the Peoples Democratic Party’s stock-in-trade over the years.
According to the ACN, the PDP was apparently bothered by the rate at which the South-West, which it left in a state of ruins, was developing and as such the need to draw back the hand of its “developmental clock.”
The statement added: “That is the only plausible explanation we can find for this pull-him-down tactic of Segun Oni. Unfortunately, however, this tactic was executed in the most illiterate and uninformed manner that beggars the question. In addressing the question of loan, Oni got it so bad that one cannot but wonder if he understood elementary economics; on road construction, he went so much off the mark that we cannot but ask NSE to look into his claim of being an engineer.”
According to the party, Oni’s engineering illiteracy stems from his making a fundamental comment on a road construction exercise that he had little or no information about its component, stating that it was elementary logic that a road’s design and component account for its cost.
Kolawole said: “First and foremost, the road in question is not four kilometres but 9.52km. The roads are divided into four sections. The first section, which comprises the Toll Gate Interchange-Efunsetan-Roundabout area has a length of 1.720 Km and is to cost N2,275,424,149.51; the second section, Efunsetan Roundabout-Orita Challenge-New Garage (Podo), which has a length of 1.995km, costs N2,300,790,219.82; the New Garage-Roundabout (Podo)-Toll Gate Interchange section is of 695m and will cost N714,781,971.31; while the fourth section, which is the Challenge Roundabout-Efunsetan Roundabout area, measuring 350m, will cost N509,003,659.36. Thus, the total sum of the contract is N5,800,000,000.00.
“Also, the four sections total 4.760km per carriageway, which translates to 9.52km for the double carriageway. It thus means that the dualization was awarded at N610million per kilometer. More fundamentally, the road is of international standard with a 25-year life span and guarantee from the contractor; comes with adequate drainage structures of reinforced concrete features; it also has as features a high Embarkment with Reinforced Concrete Retaining Walls that are very high due to the unusual topography of the area as it contains valleys and gulley; the road will also have High Standard Pavement of N150mm-thick Crushed Stone Basecourse and 90mm thick 2-layer Asphaltic Surfacing; this particular road exists in a high traffic area of Ibadan and there is high contingency expenditure for traffic diversion as some sections will provide passage/act as diversion and or alternative routes and as such, the motoring public will enjoy as much win-win, derivable benefits from the project. The cost includes provision for Supervision Consultancy Services and Compensation for affected structures; and finally, it also includes cost of relocation of existing services for electricity, water supply and telecommunication facilities.”
The party said it was surprised that a man who claims to be an engineer would rush to press to criticise a road project that has received the applause of the citizenry, simply because he needed some adversarial comment to conclude his circuit of criticising ACN governments.
On loan procurement, the ACN said Oni’s criticism also reveals his hypocrisy and economic naivety, stating that the world over, loans are major means of development, stating that what is done with the loan is more material than the procurement of the loan.
Kolawole said: “We allude to hypocrisy because Oni’s PDP national leader, President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, has approached the National Assembly for permission to access some foreign loans. Why didn’t this character direct his attack at the presidency, rather than states which are trying to clean up a South-West which Oni and his ilk in PDP despoiled like an attack of locusts?”