More than three years after the federal government awarded the contract to rehabilitate 118.9km Keffi-Nasarawa-Toto Road in Nasarawa State, the project has been abandoned.
Findings by LEADERSHIP indicated that the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved N36.130 billion for road rehabilitation in April 2022 under the immediate past administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari.
It was gathered that the contract was awarded to a Chinese firm, Messrs Wizchino Engineering Limited, with a completion time of 24 months.
A few weeks after the contract award, Wizchino Engineering Limited commenced skeletal works from the Keffi axis of the road but halted work due to the federal government’s failure to release the funds for the project.
It was also learnt that a few months after waiting in vain for funds, the contractor moved its equipment and abandoned the site altogether.
Further investigation revealed that N200 million was allocated for the road in the Federal Ministry of Works’ budget in 2022.
The same amount appeared as the project fund for the road contract in the ministry’s budget for the 2023 fiscal year.
The controller of works in the state’s Federal Ministry of Works, Engineer Daikwo Idah, confirmed to our correspondent that the contract for the project has since expired and may require a review if the federal government is keen on revisiting it.
In December 2023, the managing director of the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA), Engr. Chukwuemeka Agbasi confirmed to Governor Abdullahi Sule when the latter paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja that the contracts for the roads between Keffi and Nasarawa and between Nasarawa and Toto had been awarded.
He, however, said the contractor handling the Nasarawa-Toto axis of the projects had absconded after collecting some monies meant for the jobs.
“The Nasarawa-Toto Road contract was awarded at the cost of N986 million, but unfortunately, the contractor has abandoned the work,” the FERMA boss had explained.
During the visit, Governor Sule appealed to the agency’s management to rehabilitate the affected road, which he said had become a nightmare to motorists.
He said that even though the federal government has awarded contracts for road construction from Keffi-Nasarawa-Toto-Abaji, challenges exist that require FERMA’s intervention before the contractors are mobilised to the site.
“I already did my research and realised that the two contracts from Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto have already been awarded.
“One of the contractors, I was told, the one handling the Nasarawa-Toto axis, has absconded. He is not on site. The other one is working at a languid pace. That is why I came to see if I can get some support from FERMA to do some rehabilitation at the moment until things are sorted out,” he said.
He lamented that the stretch of road between Keffi-Nasarawa and Nasarawa-Toto could become a national embarrassment if nothing is done to rehabilitate it.
He said the road is significant, especially since more mining sites are being discovered in Nasarawa Local Government Area, and more visitors are entering the area.
“But the biggest challenge is because of the second Niger Bridge, the Loko-Iweto Bridge that was recently completed. Now, everybody coming to Abuja from the Southeast takes that road.
“The road is completely damaged. That is why I pleaded with FERMA to intervene before the road becomes a national embarrassment. Maybe some form of rehabilitation before the contractor is fully funded to come and carry out the work,” the Governor said.
According to him, the bad nature of the road means that a journey that is supposed to last twenty minutes takes close to one and a half hours.
He pleaded with the FERMA to provide remedial measures, even if only on spots that have become real eyesores.
Responding, Agbasi assured the governor that his agency would undertake rehabilitation work on the roads to ease transportation on the routes.