‘Gombe: Our roads are to stimulate economic growth’
What informed the decision of the Gombe state government to commit huge resources in the roads infrastructure? All over the world roads are very critical to development. I will tell you why roads are significant and important to Gombe state. I want to take road as an infrastructure globally. I was at a conference organised […]
What informed the decision of the Gombe state government to commit huge resources in the roads infrastructure?
All over the world roads are very critical to development. I will tell you why roads are significant and important to Gombe state. I want to take road as an infrastructure globally. I was at a conference organised by the senate committee on works, and the Minister for Works was in attendance to present a paper. Incidentally, some of the revelations we received from the paper presented by the Minister addressed the issue of historical background of road development and road infrastructure and of it we were told that the greater economies, the big nations of the world are talking about millions of kilometres of road networks in their environments. The paper dwelt on some African nations with hundreds of thousands of kilometres of roads but in Nigeria we are still battling with just about 33,000 kilometres of roads nationwide.
Don’t forget that of this number, we have major places like Lagos, Kano, Kaduna and Ibadan that could take some chunks. States like Gombe and its peer groups, we are still below 1000 kilometres coverage. Roads are the United Nations requirement for indices of reaching out to development even if you want to provide health services to a community, the community needs to be accessed; if you want to provide education, erect a school or establish any school related infrastructure, that community must be accessed even if they have to use bicycles or motorcycles at least they need what you can call a track to reach the target area.
If you are talking about agricultural operations, if you have your farm located way into the bushes you need to open up access for these farmers to take in inputs for the development of their farmlands and you need access roads for them to bring out their produce to the markets. If you want to convey services of any type you need corridors, and for maintenance purpose, even if you are tracking through the bush, NNPC pipelines that traversed all the nooks and crannies of Nigeria, you need tracks for maintenance and so on. It is still another form of road. We are talking about providing corridors and opening access. It can be an earth road, it can be a bush track. We only develop the asphalt type of conventional roads to make them durable, accessible, maintainable and reliable.
The case with Gombe is that we need to be linked. Our various communities and settlements from where we take farm produce. Our people here are mostly agrarian in nature. Greater majority also are traders who need access to markets. Some of the roads the governor has ordered to be developed based on the report of our 11 sector based committees are mainly to open up our vast agricultural potential areas so that activities can be enhanced. Gombe needs to explore ways of improving on its internally generated revenue bases. For example, the road we are developing between Kanawa-Deba-Jagali-Jaurogotel is one of the expensive ventures for a state government to embark upon, but the investment is worth the while because we are opening up the Balanga Dam site with all its vast agricultural potentials, we are opening up Maikaho International cattle market, we are opening up Kuri International produce Market, we are opening them up to access markets from which we get people coming from neighbouring states and as far as from neighbouring countries who come to trade in our several international markets.
Our Governor believes strongly that if we can improve on this, we will have saved Gombe no less than 40 to 50 percent of its revenue base. In the areas of the Dadinkowa water body, we have some villages or communities that are enjoying these water fronts but for sometime they have not been opened up to explore what activities we can open up for our foreign direct investors to come and see what potentials they can access around there. In this regard, we have developed Garindogo-Kufto road off Gombe/Potiskum highway, you can access the Dadinkowa dam from there, Bajoga-Ashaka gari you can access the Dadinkowa dam from there, because the leg right from Dadinkowa stretches up towards Ashaka.
At Malleri we have opened up from the junction of the Gombe/Potiskum road also, we are just about awarding the contract of the road from Daban-Fulani to Kinafa to Gwani. This is the last community settlement bordering the water front. The intention of our governor is that by the time we open up this, we want to invite our foreign direct investors in the agricultural and hospitality industries. In other areas, there are Maiganga coal deposits that have been discovered in Gombe here. Presently between Gombe state government and Ashaka we are considering opening up and develops the vast majority of communities around there so that they can access the Maiganga coal exploration and many more things. So, roads are very vital to enhancing development and promoting growth and the investment in this that we are doing all over Gombe state is meant to drive the state towards sustainable development.
What is the situation of road infrastructure in Gombe state now? Incidentally, you are asking this question at a time when Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo had already called for bids and council was engaged in the last few days, taking performance and evaluation reports and various activities of all the ministries. The Ministry of Works and Infrastructure had been fully engaged because we had a list of projects that needed to be presented, and evidently we have done a lot in response to the mandate given to us by the Governor. We have already presented our score card and the cabinet was highly impressed and the governor especially commended most of the Ministries for being committed.
Gombe is at the threshold of renewal efforts and commitment. The state is celebrating its 16th anniversary at the same time 52nd year anniversary of Nigeria as a nation. In Gombe, we took stock of where we were yesterday, where we are today and where we would like to be in the future. In the last couple of months, we have been very active as you can see as far as roads construction is concerned. We are still very busy and active notwithstanding that we were faced with the most difficult wet months; the rainy season has not been friendly I think globally and Nigeria as a nation has gone through very difficult times due to flooding. In Gombe we had our share of the difficulties but they did not deter us. In the few months we were at twenty or thirty percent completion stages but I can proudly tell you that we are almost nearing completion of some and some we have remarkably improved.
How far have you gone?
The last time I spoke to the media some three months ago, we were still concentrating on our first 12 and 19 additional roads, as we are talking today 20 to 21 others have been added, when I say added, because of the problem of flooding, those 12 and 19 were awarded last year August, at that time some of the areas which showed some vulnerability to flooding did not manifest then. Now that these areas became manifest, the Governor personally undertook visits to such sites and ordered that we must package and consider these corridors for development and since these were surveyed, designed and presented for consideration.
Contract was awarded as additional work to the contractor on his existing contract. If you go around especially within the Buba/Shango area and Federal Low Cost you will notice that in the past these are areas which have high deposits of sand and therefore most of the time there is heavy rainstorm that full our roads with sand thereby making it look as if there is no road there. But we have completely taken care of this menace and the down steam within the Gombe Metropolis had not faced the serious challenges it faced in the past like erosion of our streets.
Can you give us an insight into the cost implication of these roads?
We are talking of about N10.7 billion for a network of about 52 roads of 45 kilometres out of which 19 roads have been completed and opened to traffic. Here, we have to define what a road is, because the Gombe township roads are not like any other road. In the past what was specified on our road was laterite-self base and laterite base and you come and have an asphalt layer of 40mm. When we came in, we saw the need to replace the laterite base because the road structure is not about the beauty of the asphalt but is about the strength of the base material that will give extended life span to the roads, so we replace the laterite base with crushed stones base, about five inch of that is used. This crushed stone base layer it improves the design lifespan of the roads and all the 52 were developed on that prism. Except the FCT where you have this type of roads, most states go on laterite. The local government township roads, especially the ones that we have awarded put together, about 16 to 17kilometers of them we have N2.4 billion.