Sustainable and efficient street lights on Nigerian roads

Poorer countries do not bother enough about the safety of their citizens to ensure that the streets are lit at night. Bad governments do not appear to appreciate the contribution of small businesses to the economy; they seem not to recognize that many small businesses operate at night and can only do so safely when […]

Poorer countries do not bother enough about the safety of their citizens to ensure that the streets are lit at night. Bad governments do not appear to appreciate the contribution of small businesses to the economy; they seem not to recognize that many small businesses operate at night and can only do so safely when streetlights are installed and functioning. Only the non-caring nations do not realize that foreign investors will be deterred by dark and an insecure roads at night. Under-developed countries should realize that installing and sustaining street lights create direct employment and skills for engineers, technicians, craftsmen, manufacturers, contractors and traders.

Finance is by far, the most important factor responsible for the poor status of street lights in the country. Considerable sums have been invested in this sector and to the best of my assessment; the monies have been applied as intended. In the year 1997, when all the federal government streetlights installations in Lagos were dead, the installed equipment in Lagos were valued at a sum close to one billion naira. This did not include cost of any reconstruction, rehabilitation, or maintenance that had taken place over the years on these installations; neither did it include contractor, labour and profit charges.

The bane of street lighting, as far as finance is concerned, is two-fold. First, there is the inconsistency in the provision of funds and secondly there is the poor maintenance culture pervading the country.  Financing for street lights has come and gone in cycles over the years. Some federal government ministers have shown more interest in street lights works than others. In fact, in the twenty years from 1987 to the year 2007, the Federal Ministry of Works which has responsibility for street lights on federal highways, had twelve ministers appointed over it, an average of one minister every twenty months. Of these twelve ministers, only two showed passion for streetlights and provided initiative, direction, leadership and funds for street lights installations. Each of these two ministers allocated considerable funds for street lighting, but spent all of the resources earmarked, in the rehabilitation of idle installations. As soon as these ministers left office, allocation of funds to street lights shrank and depended more on the personality, ingenuity, and the persuasiveness of the streetlights engineers to attract funds for their activities, than on the desire of government to have street lights that function. The budgets for street lights have thus declined to zero often, exacerbating the deterioration of the installations which they did not provide for.

The legendary poor maintenance culture of Nigerians plays out very well with our street lights installations. There always seems to be more willingness to spend money on new projects than on the maintenance of existing ones. This is partly due to the fact that the cost of maintenance contracts are usually much smaller than the cost of new projects, and are therefore, of less interest to officials who want to award large contracts to their friends and relations. It is also due to the fact that many street lights maintenance works are done by direct labour of government staff with little or no contracts awarded. . Long periods of neglect expose the installation to vandals and thieves and make restoration even more expensive.

Engr O. Ima Kaghio lives in Abuja