The outgoing governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has revealed the reason why the Federal government refused to fix Akure- Ado road.
Fayemi will on Sunday, October 16, 2022 bow out of office after completing his second term as Governor of Ekiti State. He spoke with reporters in Ado -Ekiti, the state capital, on the challenges of the Akure-Ado road and other Federal roads in Ekiti.
Recall that the residents of Ekiti State have expressed angst over the deplorable state of roads across the state.
For the past two months, for people in Ekiti State, travelling is not an enjoyable experience again as nearly all the federal and state roads are in a deplorable state, constituting grave danger, causing a series of avoidable accidents, long hours on the road for short journeys and vulnerability to kidnaps as kidnappers now take advantage of the failed portions along these roads to pounce on travellers.
These worst roads that have been highlighted by people include the Ado Ekiti-Akure road, Aramoko-Igede road, Ado Ekiti-Ikare road, Ado-Aramoko-Itawure road, Ado-Ifaki–Ido Ekiti road, Ikere- Ise road, Ikere- Igbara Odo road and Ifaki–Oye Ekiti–Ikole–Omuo road.
Others are Aseigbe-Ijan-Ijesa Isu-Ikole road, Ado-Ilawe road, Omuo–Kabba road stretching to some local council areas in Kogi, Omuo-Oke road and Agbe–Ikare road which have been abandoned for years.
The condition of these roads has been a source of worry to residents and travellers, who repeatedly witness tragic accidents and are forced to pay high fares because motorists claim they spend more money to maintain their vehicles due to the state of the roads.
Last week, the Ewi of Ado Ekiti, Oba Adeyemo Adejugbe Aladesanmi III visited the Minister of Works and Housing, Raji Fashola, in Abuja over the poor state of roads in Ekiti State.
The monarch begged the minister to rescue Ekiti State from the poor state of roads in the state.
Oba Adejugbe also visited the office of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency, FERMA and pleaded with the Managing Director of the Agency, Alhaji Abdulrahman Rafindad to assist the State by alleviating the sufferings of the people who are experiencing untold hardship while plying these roads.
But Governor Fayemi said the federal government not allowing the state government to fix the deplorable Ado-Akure roads.
The governor who admitted that he has been receiving a lot of bashing from members of the public over it said his government had been constrained by the new policy of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration which forbids states from fixing federal roads.
He explained that his administration had accessed some funds from the African Development Bank (AfDB) to fund the project but the federal government refused.
He acknowledged that the shortage of funds had forced the federal government to stop states from rehabilitating federal roads.
The Governor said he would have loved to fix some of the federal roads in the state but for the stringent warning from the Minister of Works, Babatunde Raji Fashola that there won’t be a refund on such interventions.
Question: “Why couldn’t you use your influence as Chairman of the Governors’ Forum or as a former minister in the ruling party to fix some of the roads?”
Mr Fayemi: “First, the immediate response is that we are unhappy about the condition of the Federal roads linking Ekiti to other states and we have decided, as a policy, to take over those roads, using my network and influence, just as I said about development partners.
“We got money from the development partners. We got, in principle, support from the African Development Bank to reconstruct the Akure – Ado-Ekiti road and dualise it. But the owners of the road – the Federal Government – blatantly refused.
Question: Federal Ministry of Works?
Fayemi: “Yes, the owners of the road said ‘Leave our road alone and if you do it, you cannot toll it and we will not refund you. Just stay off our roads.’ This started in 2018.
“I was able to convince President Akinwumi Adesina of the AfDB to support the reconstruction of the road because of his own experience travelling on the road when he came to receive an honourary degree from Afe Babalola University and, on his way back, he called me and said ‘Kayode, I’ve just travelled on your road to catch my flight. This is horrible’. I said ‘Mr President, you’re correct’ and I gave him the story of the road and asked him for money (to fix the road), that’s what I’m looking for.’
“And then we started talks on the road and other projects in Ekiti. I went to Abidjan and Dr. Adesina pledged to support us but the Federal Government insisted we could not do it. I am sure you can guess which of my friends.
Which of them?
Fayemi: “You know who my friend is. He’s the friend I was in cabinet with, who was also our captain when we were all governors in the Southwest.
Does he have the final say on such matters?
Fayemi: “Well, I happen to know that they have a Federal Executive Council (FEC) policy that after paying more than half a billion as refund to states (before I came in), for roads that were reconstructed by states, a position was taken at FEC, that henceforth, no state should do Federal roads, that they (Federal Government) would fix their roads and they won’t pay any refund to anyone for any unauthorized road reconstruction.
“In fairness to the government, it was only President Buhari that ever refunded payments for roads since 1999, and it was across board, it was not selective, it was not partisan. The person who took the highest chunk of the money was (Rivers State) Governor Nyesome Wike who took over N70 billion for refund of roads fixed by previous Rivers governors.
“So, you could understand where they were coming from. But it is still inexcusable in this particular instance because we had money. Because they (Federal Government) are the sovereign, African Development Bank cannot give Ekiti money unless the Federal Republic of Nigeria signs off on the money. So, we then conceded and I then asked the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola), ‘What if we transfer the money to you? The important thing is, fix our road.
“It doesn’t matter whether it is Ekiti that took money or you.’ Then we started another round (of talks) and we transferred the ownership of whatever is coming from AfDB to the Federal Government. The Federal Ministry of Finance got it and said okay she would sign – this is just paperwork, the money had not come – transferred it back to them, they took possession.
“AFDB then said fine, it would still be in the Nigerian portfolio. The Federal Government can take it, but in taking it you must comply with our procurement process. This is global standard procurement process. The Federal Government agreed but the road had by now been awarded by the FEC to Dantata and Sawoe.
“So, they accepted to take it over. Meanwhile, out of the N30billion the road was awarded for, in the first year – 2021 or 2020 – they (Federal Government) gave the contractor N400m out of N30b. So, the contractor used the N400m to mobilise to site. They got their equipment, vehicles, etc. The following year, N1billion was earmarked for the project in the (national) budget and they (contractor) started some work.
“We wanted to do a road, we looked for money to do it, we ran into headwinds and the question to ask yourself is, what is this thing called Federal roads anyway? Because the Ekiti people asking why the roads are bad are right.
“They don’t know the difference between Federal roads and state roads. As far as they are concerned, the governor is the closest person to them, he’s the one they will hold responsible, even if he does not know anything about it, we will hold him responsible. That is the problem we face. The roads that are not ours, that we wanted to take responsibility for and fix, we were unable to. Yet, we still carry the can, we are the ones being held responsible by the people. They are right. They shouldn’t have to worry themselves that one road is Federal, the other is state, another is local; that is too much stress for the ordinary citizen, they just want roads to be fixed. So, that’s the context of the problem we are grappling with. It is unfortunate. Now, we have shifted, because they are not ready to follow the AfDB procurement process.
“The AfDB is still asking for updates up till now. We are now chasing the NNPC, because the NNPC has also started its own tax credit roads. So, working with the Ministry of Works and NNPC, we have put Ado Ekiti – Akure on the tax credit road, just last week, with the hope that they would accelerate the work and it would still be under the purview of the Federal because that’s what we did for the road between Omuo and Kabba, which we got Dangote to sign up to for tax credit and extend the one they did from Obajana to Kabba to Ekiti boundary. So that’s the nature of our Federal system.
