By Ozioruva Aliu
WHEN the concession of the about 125-kilometre Benin-Asaba Highway was initiated in 2023 and then officially launched in March 2025, road users, commuters and residents along the road corridors felt, for the first time, a road would be constructed in the South-South without the hitches of shoddy job, non-release of funds to contractors and other bureaucratic bottlenecks.
Read Also: Highways of horror: Motorists wail, spend 4 days on Benin-Asaba road
The road, which is a dual carriageway, was supposed to be expanded to ten lanes from the Oba Ovonramwen Square, popularly called Ring Road in Benin-City to the Onitsha Head Bridge in Delta State.
The handover of the road to the concessionaire, the Benin-Asaba Expressway Concession Company (BAECC), in March of 2025 was done with fanfare.
The large ceremony attracted the high and the mighty, including Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State, a high powered delegation from Delta State government, the Deputy Governor of Edo State, Rt. Hon Dennis Idahosa, then-Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Hon Blessing Agbebaku, then-Minister of Finance, Mr Wale Edun, Minister of Works, David Umahi, a former governor of Edo State and now a senator, Comrade Adams Oshiomhoe, and chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) among others.
The Minister of Works said the concessionaire had 30 months to complete the reconstruction, toll and manage the road for 25 years to recoup its investment.
The concessionaire told journalists then that funding would not be a problem; they even said Pension Fund Administrators and several banks were ready to finance the project.
Few weeks after the fanfare, they started giving quit notices to owners of structures in their right of way including the Benin office of the Central Bank of Nigeria and other structures.
While those to be affected by the quit notice were lamenting their situation and some of them even protesting the planned action, commuters and drivers were getting excited believing that again, they could drive from Benin to Asaba in less than two hours.
But fifteen months after the elaborate ceremony of handover, the people have been faced with more hardship plying that road than even before it was handed over to the concessionaire.
The company only excavated the entire stretch of asphalt before the by-pass to over ten kilometres towards Asaba from the popular Agbor Part from the Ramat Park axis of the road.
This was followed by pouring grounded stones on the surface and stones on others.
This completely distorted and displaced several persons and businesses within the area. Businesses closed shop resulting in losses in billions of naira.
The inconvenience on that road got to its peak last week when the road became impassable because of endless rainfall.
This exposed the challenge of the competence of proper planning of those handling the project including the concessionaire as hundreds of vehicles and travelers were stuck on that road.
Many spent hours, others spent days on the road just to navigate their way to the city centre and from there find their way.
Perishable goods and their owners were the worst hit as their goods became useless.
A good example was that of fish traders and farmers who were unable to get their fishes to their destinations; the fishes died.
While travelers going long ways became helpless resorting to fate, others going into Benin-City, especially those with light loads, had to abandon the vehicles they were travelling in and entered commercial motor cycles or trekked to their destination.
Penultimate Thursday, youths in the area, under the name Ikpoba Hill Youth Forum, staged a peaceful protest to draw the attention of the government to their plight.
They also helped in creating temporary routes for road users to navigate their way into and out of the city centre.
Umahi’s visit last Tuesday exposed the crisis on that road.
It became obvious that the concessionaire had other plans on the road as he defied the suggestions by the Minister and Okpebholo while on a routine inspection when they asked him to instruct the contractor to stop excavating the asphalt on the road.
He also ignored the advice and suggestion of his internal adviser and the Ministry of Works that he could not begin road construction without first constructing drainages to take the waters away.
All stakeholders present, including commuters, residents of the area, youth groups, the chairmen Senate Committee on Works and the House of Representatives, officials of the Ministry of Sports, the governor of Edo State and his team, expressed their disappointment on the way the road had been handled.
Umahi immediately gave a directive that all concessioned roads across the country be reviewed and called for a stakeholders meeting to review the situation of the Benin – Asaba road.
Meeting
At the meeting, the Minister gave options for the concessionaire to adopt even as he said that it was obvious the concessionaire has fallen short of expectations.
At the stakeholders meeting held in Government House Benin-City, the Minister said three reputable contractors had been assembled to take over the construction of the highway if BAECC agreed to the terms.
Among the options were for the contractor to be given the right of first refusal to toll the road after the Federal Government completes construction work with a view to recovering whatever was expended during construction work.
The second option was to terminate the contract due to the fact that disputes exist and all relevant stakeholders would be informed.
Umahi said the third option was for the concessionaire to bring a contractor working in Nigeria but that the government would design and supervise the project.
He said the BAECC would toll the road and collect 70 percent while the FG collects 30 percent.
The Works Minister described the options as generous, saying, “We are available for trouble.”
“By the concession agreement, we played into the hands of the concessionaire. There are implications of any decision we take. “It is up to the concessionaire to lower his pride. He is a young man speaking before his elders arrogantly.
“I will ask that you (BAECC CEO) be removed from the site.
“Independent engineers will take measurement of all works done excluding negative work.
“We want to plead, we do not see you having the capacity to fix the road. Allow the Ministry of Works to bring in competent contractors. You have no technical capacity.
“It is a highly technical job. It will require committed personnel. Give us a written approval to do this.
“You cannot avert public disorder. We have not asked you out of the site but remove all unprofessional staff from the site.
“Dispute has existed, we will be writing to you to remedy the default. “Reinstate all removed asphalt at cost to the client. Remove water directed to the carriage way. Restore free flow of traffic.
“Remove the Project Director, show us technical competence and proof of road done before.
“Remove dust used in the name of the stone base. You are to provide technical design for storm water channelisation.”
Okpebholo said he felt horrible with the state of the road.
“What we are seeing now is not what we are supposed to be seeing after 16 months. You cannot give what you do not have”, the governor said.
“If they were competent, we should have seen part of this road achieved. Do the needful. Edo people are watching. Something has to be done between now and Christmas.
“I believe in what people will see. You cannot make a profit where you are not working. There has to be a laid down principle.”
Head of Legal of BAECC, Peterson Fabian, described the FG’s options as friendly and collaborative and appealed for more time for consultation and discussions to decide the way forward.
To the Chairman, Senate Committee on Works, Allwell Onyesoh, commuters and other road users plying the Benin-Asaba road described the situation as terrible.
“This is a big lesson about concessionaires in Nigeria. We can see that it is not everybody that has the capacity to handle such a big project,” he said.
Group reacts
A group, The Common Good Letter, in an investigative assessment of the road and all that concerned, it called for response to critical questions which, it said, would give a clearer understanding of what has happened on the road and the way forward.
In an open letter to civil society organisations in Edo and Delta states, Publisher of the Common Good Letter, Rev. David Ugolor, said his call was not to defend the concessionaire, excuse defective work or delay urgent repairs but that it was a call to ensure that emergency relief and lawful accountability proceeded
together and that decisions taken to calm immediate tension do not create larger undisclosed costs for taxpayers and road users.
Ugolor said: “The Benin–Asaba corridor links communities, markets and productive activity across Edo and Delta States.
“Its failure imposes costs on families, transporters, workers, farmers and businesses in both states.
“Fragmented advocacy will allow responsibility to be shifted from one institution to another.
“A coordinated civil society response can ensure that the road is made safe while the ownership, financing, performance and liabilities of the concession are fully examined.”
He raised some issues that he felt all the stakeholders should take seriously which included transparency, accountability, the scale and source of investment, the capacity of the stakeholders, and whether the governance architecture established to protect the public interest has actually worked.
Vanguard News
The post Edo/Delta: When concession turns highway into hell appeared first on Vanguard News.