This series will highlight different Niger Delta policy actions by the Buhari administration, starting with its strong mobilization to complete the East West Road.
Many good and notable things continue to happen in furtherance of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Niger Delta policy. The policy is specially designed to improve quality of life indices in the region through modest infrastructure building, facilitation of industrial clusters and many utilitarian initiatives. It is very ambitious, intensive and flexible enough to position the region’s economy for significant post COVID-19 growth and development.
President Buhari’s agenda for the region can only be as good and implimentable as the driver is focused and pragmatic. In August 2019, he appointed Sen. Godswill Akpabio as Minister of Niger Delta Affairs and gave him the game-changing responsibility of driving all aspects of a new Niger Delta policy plan. Apart from Sen. Akpabio, there is hardly any other reform-minded and better experienced Niger Deltan who, at this time, having the gravitas, can successfully implement the President’s agenda for the region.
That appointment was a dog whistle for massive public support and confidence. Just as President Buhari has great confidence in Sen. Godswill Akpabio, so do most Nigerians, especially people of the Niger Delta region. Now, they have huge expectations for an “uncommon transformation” of their region simply because Sen. Akpabio is driving the new policy.
Since his days as Akwa Ibom State governor and, later, the Senate Minority Leader, Sen. Akpabio maintains an unassailable track record of pragmatic leadership that transform lives while developing quality socio-economic infrastructure. Currently a Minister of the Federal Republic, he is not slacking, but is raising his performance bar for purposes of posting some of the best milestones and legacies of the Buhari government. He has huge expectations to fulfill.
President Buhari is successfully engaging various Niger Delta stakeholders towards cleaning up the environment and eliminating restiveness.
Also, President Buhari is reforming the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) from a racketeers’ enclave into a clean, transparent, efficient and impactful vehicle for economic growth and development of the Niger Delta region. Since established about 20 years ago, blatant corruption and scandalous management teams have crippled the NDDC, giving it much notoriety as an inefficient and deadbeat Commission. With an over N3 trillion debt profile, in addition to much more funds sunk in since it was established, NDDC cannot point to any important regional project it has ever completed.
In October 2019, President Buhari inaugurated an Interim Management Committee (IMC) to both supervise a forensic audit of NDDC and recommend some better and effective management strategies for the Commission. President Buhari’s impetus for fighting corruption at NDDC and resetting its ridiculous management team derived from blending his anti corruption war into the new Niger Delta agenda. By ordering a forensic audit of NDDC, he started the onerous and indispensable task of reforming the Commission. Now, President Buhari has moved the needle towards a stable, efficient and utilitarian NDDC, away from the culture of pervasive corruption that paralyzed the intervention agancy.
Because Sen. Akpabio and the IMC members are focused and results-oriented, President Buhari is about commissioning the newly completed NDDC headquarters building. As if completing the building was jinxed, all management teams prior to the IMC deliberately avoided or delayed construction of the building beyond its 50% completion level. Yet, for about 20 years, N300 million was squandered annually to rent a building that, at the establishment of NDDC, was donated free of charge by the Rivers State Government.
For purposes of improving connectivity and sustainable development, fixing infrastructure deficiencies in the region is an important policy action that President Buhari is determined to accomplish. Therefore,completing the East West Road (EWR) will register both as a major milestone and as an outstanding legacy of immense socio-economic value.
The EWR is a backbone road infrastructure for economic growth and development in the South-South geopolitical zone. So far, it has gulped over N725 billion and is expected, when completed, that many new communities, industrial clusters, tourism sites, technology hubs and much more will develop and boost local economies along the road.
President Buhari, while reading his Democracy Day speech to the nation on June 12, 2020, announced the immediate release of N19.67 billion to the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs towards fast-tracking the completion of EWR in year 2021. Sen. Godswill Akpabio and the IMC members, with the same vigour demonstrated towards completing the new NDDC headquarters, are already at work to carry out the Presidential directive.
Highlight: The East West Road
The East-West Road (EWR) is a 657 kilometers dual carriage road that has five sections cutting across five South-South states namely, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta and Rivers. Originally scheduled for completion in 2010, construction of sections 1 to 4 started in 2006. So far, sections 1 and 3 of the EWR have been completed. Construction works in sections 2, 4 and 5 are either ongoing or were stalled for reasons ranging from poor funding to inflexible terms by financial institutions or abandonment.
The EWR is made up of five sections:
Section 1 starts from Warri, Delta State to Kaiyema, Bayelsa State. Contract was awarded to Broadline Construction Company in 2006 and completed in 2008.
Section 2 starts from Kaiyema Bridge, Bayelsa State to Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
Section 3 starts from Port Harcourt through Eleme-Onne Junction in Rivers State to Oron, Akwa Ibom State.
Section 4 is a 30 kilometers road linking Eket to Oron in Akwa Ibom State. It is 90% complete and includes the Eket Bypass that was awarded separately as an addendum Contract to GITTO Construction Company. Eket bypass is a 15-kilometer road with three interchanges, three lanes on either side and pavements.
Section 5 – a 23-kilometer road linking Oron in Akwa Ibom State to the Odukpani-Calabar road in Cross River State. This section was added during the Goodluck Ebele Jonathan presidency and construction is yet to commence.
