Commuters, Residents Call For Revocation Of Keffi-Nasarawa Road Contract

Residents on the corridor of the Keffi-Nasarawa-Toto-Abaji Road as well as commuters have urged the federal government to replace the contractor handling the project with a more competent firm due to alleged shoddy job.

The respondents who spoke to LEADERSHIP on the condition of the road said that the contractor, Messrs. Wizchino Engineering Limited, has not shown capacity to do quality work.

They also averred that the work on the road had been slow due to the non-availability of the right equipment to execute a job of that magnitude.

Mr Augustine Adikwu, an interstate commercial driver who commutes between Abuja and Oturkpo in Benue State told our correspondent at the project site by the entrance to Nasarawa town close to the Federal Polytechnic gate that he has seen the workers using hand water sprayer instead of a motorise one, stressing that “in the 21 century road construction, even a rural feeder road can’t be handled this way,” he stated.

“The only way is to get a competent contractor to handle the project. These people have been here for a long time yet they are at the same spot,” he noted.

Also, a resident of the Gurki community, Aliyu Ismail said the contractor has not shown sincerity in the handling of the job, while wondering why the federal government engaged it in the first place.

“This road is an interstate connectivity linking this part of the North Central to the East, so you can imagine the volume of traffic that plies here every day even with its state. That is why it is necessary to give the contract to competent hands,” he said.

In the same vine, the Federal Controller of Works, Nasarawa State Eng. Ishaku Mamri , who led the media team to expect the project also decried the slow pace of work and quality of the job.

“The work is not done the way it is supposed to be done. When I got the notifi­cation, we gave them a letter on what to do. They didn’t work based on our directives.

” And I told them this is not a banana republic. We have specifications. The ministry has laid down procedures of getting our work done, you can’t do it anyhow,” he noted.

Also reacting, both the Nasara­wa State commissioner for work, Mu’a zu Gosho, and the chairman, Nasarawa State Chapter of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, Salihu Alkali condemned the handling of the job which they described as substandard.

Alkali called on the minister of Works, David Umahi, to revoke the contract and re-award it to a more competent contractor.

LEADERSHIP reports that a contract for the rehabilitation of the road was awarded to the company during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari in April, 2022 with completion period of 24 months.

The job specification covers 118.9km from Keffi-Nasarawa-Toto, but work on the project had stalled and even at some points, abandoned.

In October, 2025, the federal government ordered the contractor back to work while extending the length of the project from 118.9km to 137 kilometres to cover up to Abaji in the Federal Capital Territory.