President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s two-year tenure has transformed Nigerian roads into bustling construction sites, offering both relief and frustration to road users. With a total of 2,669 road projects underway—comprising 2,604 inherited major projects and 65 new initiatives—the government has made significant strides in infrastructure development. However, behind this ambitious agenda, engineers and experts warn that systemic issues like kickbacks and corruption are undermining the quality and success of these projects.
According to the Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi, President Tinubu inherited 2,604 major road projects valued at approximately ₦13 trillion in 2023. The administration added 65 new major projects and prioritized completing 260 palliative projects costing ₦208 billion, which were vital in easing transportation across states. Due to economic shifts and subsidy removals, the total cost of ongoing and planned projects has now ballooned to an estimated ₦20 trillion.
Umahi highlighted that the President directed a strategic focus on 440 critical projects across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, reviewing them to align with current economic realities. In addition to these, four legacy road projects spanning thousands of kilometers are underway or in procurement stages, including:
Lagos to Calabar Coastal Highway (700 km); Sokoto (Ilelah) to Badagry (Lagos) (1,068 km); Abakaliki (Ebonyi) to Abuja (474 km); Akwanga (Nasarawa) to Gombe (420 km)
These projects aim to connect key regions and boost national integration.
He said, “This 2604 inherited projects totalling about 13trn and and of course 1 trillion naira was kept owed contractors for completed jobs. With subsidy removal the projects came to 17-18 trn and today projecting that is about 20 trn but by the ingenuity of the president, he directed that we prioritize these inherited projects along six geopolitical zones and we came up with a total of 440 projects that needed to be reviewed due to economic indices that changed.
Aside from projects completed and commissioned, We have also completed another set of 19 projects. Mr President in 2023 directed immediate action on 260 palliative projects,these projects have been completed up to 99 percent . These projects are very important,if these palliatives were not fixed, it would have been difficult to move from one State to another.
I commend the President for taking on infrastructure projects” he said.
Umahi attributed the successes to new regulations for road construction under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
He said the regulations have significantly advanced various abandoned and legacy projects.
He stated that some roads had remained unbuilt for up to 50 years.
He added that projects i and ii are already ongoing, while project iii has been awarded, and project iv is currently undergoing procurement process and will soon be awarded.
“Engr. Umahi’s leadership style is characterized by a commitment to legacy-building, reliability, and patriotism in service to the Nigerian people. This positions him as a compassionate and decisive figure in the ongoing development of the nation’s infrastructure.
He has successfully aligned the Ministry’s mandates with those of the Renewed Hope Agenda, which, among others, aiming s to enhance infrastructure and transportation as drivers of growth,”.
The registrar, Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) Prof. Okorie Uche advocated the enforcement of rigorous building codes and compliance to prevent infrastructure failures in Nigeria.
Prof. Uche revealed that 80 percent of building collapses were from private developers and some due to kickbacks received by awarding authorities resulting to use of substandard materials.
“Those who are doing this development, that’s where the problem, 80 per cent of failures are from private developers. But the people who have seen from statistics that are causing this problem, 80 per cent of them don’t attend our gatherings.
And when we gather to speak on collapses, infrastructure maintenance, there’s need for them to be around and see what we are saying. If not, you find out that we are just talking to ourselves on what we know,” he said.
Uche spoke at the 5th Engr. U. G. Jibrin annual public lecture with the theme “Effective Engineering Administration as a Panacea for Building and Infrastructure Collapse,” held in Abuja on Saturday.
Prof. Uche citing a report from Building Collapse Prevention Guide, 2023, said over 200 building collapses were recorded in Nigeria between 2010 and 2023.
“This is a sobering statistic and an indictment of systematic failures,”.
“Every collapse is a failure of administration, a betrayer of trust, and an erosion of hope. We must rise to change this narrative. We must insist on professionalism over patronage.We must prioritize long-term safety over short-term profits.
“We must empower engineers not to just build, but to lead. Let us remember no nation rises above the integrity of its infrastructure. And no infrastructure stands tall without the scaffolding of sound engineering administration,”.
He attributed the failures to absence of qualified supervision, use of substandard materials, lack of enforcement of regulations, inadequate or expired structural designs, corruption in planning approvals, poor maintenance culture.
“From residential building to bridge, roads, grid failure and public infrastructure failure, Nigeria has witnessed numerous catastrophic failures due to poor engineering practices, substandard materials, inadequate regulations and corruption,”
He emphasised the importance of effective engineering administration in the execution of successful infrastructure projects.
He said ” Engineering administration is the backbone of any successful infrastructure project. It encompasses planning, research allocation, project management, policy implementation, adherence to regulatory standard.
“When executed properly, it ensures that engineering project meet global standards of quality, durability, and safety. To curb the maintenance of infrastructure collapse, we must commit to the following pillars of effective engineering administration and one is strict regulatory oversight.
“Authorities must enforce rigorous building codes and compliance standards. Engineers and contractors who violate regulation must be held accountable. Who is to do this? We have in the built environment an avalanche of regulatory bodies”.
He lamented that defunding COREN would weaken it’s regulatory powers becoming a mere professional association.
“The defunding that happened was something that I don’t know how to put it. But we envisage that we can be on our own. We are ready to be on our own.But the story that I met is not saying that we can be on our own. It’s really going to turn us to be like another professional association. When you go to regulators to support your activities, the people you are regulating, to support the activities in regulation.Definitely there is room for you to compromise. So I am urging senior members here who have access to National Assembly, have access to Minister for Works and Order,” .
He explained that Just like the medical regulators,there is need for stakeholders to make case for COREN to be reconsidered by the federal government.
He warned against policies that would return COREN to the status of a mere association and not a regulatory body.
He cautioned Engineers working in government against discrediting professional colleagues unjustly.
He warned that it was against the ethics of COREN for an engineer in an approving agency to discredit another engineers for peculiar gains other than professional reasons.
“Because within the few months I am in office, people come to complain that our colleagues in these agencies don’t approve anything except they are the ones that did it.
I don’t know how right is that. Please, let us know the engineering ethics should be maintained in such agencies,”
He reiterated that the use of inferior material was a silent killer in the construction industry.
“Government agencies and private stakeholders must enforce strict quality assurance mechanism to prevent the use of substandard materials,”.
On the menace of kickbacks, he said “And this also, if we begin to open up, you find out that when contracts are signed and people hear the amount of money that is involved, and the contractor is called and given a percentage of the signed contract, you find out that if the people in the office or the people that are in charge of the contract takes higher percentage of the work, of the money, the contractor will look for cheap things to present and go and say he has delivered. So, let us talk to ourselves, those who are in charge. If we want this nation to overcome some of all these things, there is a need for us to actually talk to ourselves,”.
The National chairman, Nigerian Institution of Civil Engineers (NICE) Engr. Tokunbo Ajanaku said it was high time Nigerian Engineers took on decision on the menace of failed infrastructures in the country.
He said “as a nation, we are daily confronted with the disturbing reality of building and infrastructure failures, which not only result in economic loss but, regularly, the lose of lives. It is no longer sufficient to point fingers at design flaws or construction practices alone. We must critically examine the frameworks of engineering administration like our regulatory systems, proy supervulon, enforcemiont of standards, and the leadership capacities within our engineering institutions and agencies.”
He said effective administration is the backbone of sustainable engineering outcomes.
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