The newly incorporated Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has received the presidential approval to reconstruct the collapsed Lagos- Badagry expressway, as well as 20 other federal roads spread across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The approval was given on Wednesday at the weekly virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja.
The newly incorporated Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) has received the presidential approval to reconstruct the collapsed Lagos- Badagry expressway, as well as 20 other federal roads spread across the six geopolitical zones of the country.
The approval was given on Wednesday at the weekly virtual Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the State House, Abuja.
Briefing newsmen after the meeting, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, said FEC has given approval to the NNPC to take over the reconstruction of 1,804.6 kilometres-long 21 federal roads in critical conditions at a whopping sum of N621.2 billion.
The minister said it was being executed via a strategic intervention under the Federal Government Road Infrastructure and Refreshment Tax Credit Scheme.
According to him, nine of the selected projects are in North-central, three in North-east, two in North-west, two in South-east, three in South-south, and two in South-west.
He said, ‘’Earlier this year, there were five other roads – the Kaduna Western bypass, the Lekki Port road, the road from Shagamu through Papalanto, and a couple of others, and there is one road in Maiduguri. That was about N320 billion.
“So today (Wednesday), we have another player. We have all the interested players who are still showing interest, but we haven’t concluded. We have another player who has shown interest and commitment to deploy taxes. It’s the government corporation known as NNPC.
“So, NNPC has identified 21 roads that it wants to deploy. Now, the instructive thing about this is that this initiative helps the government to achieve many things, including ministerial mandates three and four, which we discussed at the last retreat. Ministerial mandates three and four, if you recall, was energy sufficiency, electric power and petroleum energy distribution across the country.
“Of course, petroleum energy distribution is being impacted positively and negatively, as the case may be the transport infrastructure which is the ministerial mandate four. NNPC has sought and the council has approved today that NNPC deploys tax resources to 21 roads, covering a total distance of 1,804.6 kilometres across the six geopolitical zones.
“Out of those 21 roads, nine are in North Central, particularly Niger state. The reason is that Niger State is a major storage centre for NNPC. NNPC is doing this to facilitate the total distribution across the country.”
Fashola further assured that in the South-West, the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, the Agabara junction, Ibadan to Ilorin (Oyo-Ogbomoso section) will be fixed.
On the South-East roads, the minister said you have Aba-Ikot Ekpene in Abia and Akwa Ibom States, then the Umuahia to Ikwuamo, to Ikot Ekpene road and so on and so forth.
Going further he said, “In the North-West, it is Gada Zaima-Zuru-Gamji road, and also Zaria-Funtau-Gusau-Sokoto road. In the North-East, it is Cham, Bali Serti and Gombe-Biu road.”
