Nigeria must find more creative ways to fund road projects — Senator Karimi

Kogi-West Senator, Sunday Karimi, has said that the problem of dilapidated roads in Nigeria can only be solved through adequate funding.

Karimi called for “more creative ways,” aside from budgetary allocations, the SUKKUK, and the interventions by the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL) to fund road projects.

He was speaking on the floor of the Senate in Abuja on Thursday while contributing to a motion on the state of roads in the country, especially the North-East Geopolitical Zone.

Sen. Karimi observed that one window for funding that could be further explored could be tolling, to ensure that companies using vehicles with heavy axle loads paid additional tolls.

“We need a holistic approach, we need to bring back tollgates to many of the roads. So many trucks and vehicles of companies with heavy axle loads are using our roads almost free of charge.

“This is an area that we can still look at, besides what the NNPCL and SUKKUK are doing.

“They are trying, but we all know that it is still not enough,” he argued.

He told his colleagues that in every part of the country, there was one road project or another ongoing but with poor funding, a development that resulted in little or no progress.

“The problem of roads in Nigeria is about funding. In every part of the country, road works are on, yet not much is achieved.

“The Kabba-Ilorin Road project was awarded in 2014, but has been abandoned since 2016 because of lack of funds,” he added.

Karimi disagreed with the submission that the Northeast had more road challenges than other zones, citing instances from the eight years of the former President Muhammadu Buhari (2015-2023) administration, which gave extra attention to the zone.

“An impression is created that the Northeast was intentionally mistreated by the present government. That is not correct.

“A lot of efforts were made during Buhari’s eight years to work on Northeast roads.

“So, no part of Nigeria does not face one challenge or another with road issues. The problem we have is lack of funds,” he said.

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