By IPS Correspondents
ONITSHA, Nigeria, Oct 10 1996 (IPS)

The death of Nigeria’s first president saddened people in the eastern part of the country, his home area, but they are benefitting from one of its effects — the rehabilitation of roads long neglected by the government.

Since ex-head of state Nnamdi Azikiwe died in May at the age of 91, more than 500 km of roads in the eastern states of Anambra, Enugu, Rivers, Delta, Cross River and Akwa Ibom, have been under reconstruction in preparation for his burial on Nov. 16 – the date he would have celebrated his 92nd birthday.

Contracts worth more than 12.5 million U.S. dollars have been awarded to foreign and local civil engineering contractors to rehabilitate the roads, most of which had been washed away by erosion.

“We cannot honour Zik (as Azikiwe was popularly called) enough,” said David Attah, chief press secretary to head of state Gen. Sani Abacha, and chairman of the publicity sub-committee of the National Planning Committee for Zik’s Burial.

“His death has been very catalytic. I am sure by November the whole of this (eastern) zone is going to wear a completely new look, which is good and proper,” added Attah.

Nigerian officials have been taking the rehabilitation work seriously, including Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, head of the Petroleum Trust Fund (PTF), which has provided financing for the road projects.

When Buhari visited Azikiwe’s home town, Onitsha, in late September, he was disappointed by the slow pace of work around the late president’s former residence, where erosion had washed away a dual carriage-way, leaving a deep gully in its place.

The PTF head announced on the spot the withdrawal of the repairs contract from the local firm that was handling it and awarded it to a transnational construction company, which has pledged to have the road ready by the end of October.

“It is absolutely necessary that the roads be ready in order to smoothen movement” during the burial — which will take place in Onitsha –, said Buhari, who was head of state in 1984-1985.

“I hope to come back after the burial to see what we have done and what still needs to be done,” he told a corps of journalists who had accompanied him on the inspection tour.

Buhari and his entourage had first-hand experience of the state of roads in the east as they travelled through the area. It took them 11 hours to cover the 216 kilometres separating the towns of Enugu and Port Harcourt.

The roads in the east form part of a national network of highways built at the height of Nigeria’s oil boom in the 1970s and early 1980s.

As an economic crisis that began in the mid-80s deepened, most of Nigeria’s roads fell into disrepair, particularly in the eastern rain forest area, where they suffered from erosion caused by torrential rain and deforestation.

As a result of the state of the roads, lives were lost in accidents while economic activities suffered, but government response remained slow.

Indeed, some community leaders in eastern Nigeria had alleged that the area was being deliberately marginalised because of its unsuccessful bid to secede between 1967, when it was declared the Republic of Biafra, and 1970, when the war of secession ended.

Two months ago, Works and Housing Minister Major-General Abdulkarim Adisa saw an opportunity to debunk the allegations of marginalisation when he visited the Enugu-Port Harcourt road to inspect rehabilitation work and found that nothing had been done.

Speaking before television cameras, Adisa urged easterners to “find out from your son (i.e. a person from the region) who was awarded this contract what he has done with the money” given to him for the job.

An aide to the Minister told IPS that many local contractors “see the award of these road construction contracts as political patronage and often abandon the jobs upon the collection of mobilisation fees.

“We shall take them before the Failed Contracts Tribunal which the head of state promised would be established soon,” he said.

Attah stressed that, given the need to finish repairing the roads before Nov. 16, “we cannot afford any contractor to hold us to ransom.”

But the work underway in the east is just a drop in the ocean: about 30 percent of the 105,000 kms of tarred roads in Nigeria, which has a total area of 927,773 sq.km., need resurfacing.

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