President Tinubu should divert every kobo set aside to fund palliatives into road construction as part of a major transportation infrastructure overhaul

Ayo Akinfe

[1] Nigeria is the world’s sixth largest agricultural producer but alas, up to one third of our food production goes to waste due to poor transportation and storage facilities. To stem this waste, the federal government needs to make rural roads an urgent priority

[2] In some parts of Nigeria, entire local government areas are cut off during the rainy season. Just imagine the amount of farm produce that ends up being wasted

[3] Across many parts of the country, getting perishables like tomatoes to market is a nightmare. Because of the potholes and poor roads in the rural areas, about half of the produce gets squashed on route to urban centres

[4] One of the reasons why many of these roads across Nigeria are in such a terrible state is because our governors are waiting for the federal government to come and fix them. They claim they are “federal roads” and as such want Abuja to come and do their jobs for them. I find this totally unacceptable, as a state governor, it is solely your responsibility to fix the roads in your state

[5] All the federal government should be involved in is the construction of inter-city motorways. Once they are built, maintenance, upgrading, dualisation, etc, should be the sole responsibility of state governors

[6] In the past, state governors have repaired so-called federal roads and asked for refunds. However, we now know that this has been a conduit for corruption. These states are billing the federal government about three times the amounts paid out, so President Tinubu needs to stop honouring such payments

[7] I am at a loss as to why a state cannot generate the revenue it needs to maintain its roads. How the hell did this become a “federal matter” for heaven’s sake?

[8] If anything, our federal ministries of transport and works should focus their energy and resources on rail and seaports. Roads should eventually come off the list of federal government responsibilities

[9] Our governors need to get off their lazy backsides and sort out our rural roads. We do not need fancy flyovers and multiple urban dual carriageways but simple tarred rural roads to connect farming villages with urban centres

[10] I would like to see President Tinubu divert all this money wasted on palliatives into transport. Maybe come up with a rural railway network to link up our farming communities