Boma Achenimie 
The newly inaugurated President of Nigeria, Bola Tinubu, has taken over N16.29trn uncompleted projects from his predecessor, Muhammadu Buhari.
The projects according to findings were identified through the national monitoring and evaluation platform, EYEMARK, which was launched by Buhari in December last year.
The former President highlighted that with so many infrastructure projects dispersed across the nation, the Federal Government could no longer rely on its small number of monitoring and evaluation teams to keep an eye on things.
He claimed that it was only appropriate to set up suitable channels for careful public monitoring because his regime had invested more in infrastructure projects than any other in the past.
He claimed that doing this will close the gaps now present and encourage citizen participation in governance.
He stated that EYEMARK made “the status of projects, the total amount appropriated and dispensed so far are now available in the public space.”
According to the national monitoring and assessment tool, EYEMARK, 33 projects still needed to be finished.
The Lagos-Ibadan Motorway is one such project, with an estimated cost of N315 billion. This 126.6-kilometre road is reportedly 85 per cent finished.
The reopening of the Lagos-Ibadan Motorway had once more been delayed by the Federal Government, which claimed that the original target date of April 30 was no longer practicable.
Babatunde Fashola, a former minister of works and housing, dropped the hint when he said the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway’s Kara Bridge portion was experiencing significant traffic from the toll gate.
The contractors in charge of this project are Julius Berger Nigeria Pls and RCC, according to the EYEMARK app.
The Bodo-Bonny Road project is another one, with an N200 billion cost projection. The estimated cost of Julius Berger’s 37.9-kilometre road is 75% completed.
Fashola recently said work on the Bodo-Bonny Road would be completed in December 2023, even as he hailed the continued progress on the work, with or without Buhari in office.
According to him, the funding for the project comes from the Federal Government’s Tax Credit Scheme into which Nigeria’s Liquefied Natural Gas and other big companies, like Dangote and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, are investing.
Another project is the $25 billion (or N11.52 trillion) Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline. It is the unfinished project with the highest cost.
The Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited is in charge of carrying out the National Gas Expansion Programme of Nigeria, which includes the construction of the Nigeria-Morocco and Trans-Sahara Gas Pipelines as well as domestic gas pipeline infrastructure projects.
On the Nigeria-Morocco Gas Pipeline Project, the NNPC has inked five Memoranda of Understanding with national oil firms and pertinent entities of five African nations. The five national oil firms and pertinent organisations are from Sierra Leone, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau.
The counterpart funding for the Greater Abuja Water Project, estimated at $470.76m (about N217bn) is still pending.
Five years after the conceptualisation of the $470m Greeter Abuja Water Project, the Federal Government was yet to release the 20 per cent counterpart fund for the execution and delivery of the project as planned.
There is also the dualization of Akure-Ado Ekiti Road in Ondo/Ekiti states put at N90bn. Fashola last week commissioned the dualisation and construction of the Akure/Iju-Itagbolu/Ado-Ekiti road, which he said would be completed within a spate of 24 months.
He also disclosed that the award and commissioning of the road took so long because of the necessary process required by the new procurement law.
He assured stakeholders that the financing of the project had been taken care of by the NNPC through a tax credit policy and that construction work would not stop till completion.
The Itobe power plant, with a project cost of $5bn (about N2.3tn), is also pending. The 2,400MW coal-fired power project is put at 30 per cent completion with the contractor as Eta-Zuma Group.
There is also the renovation of the National Assembly Complex projected to cost about N30.23bn. The Federal Capital Development Authority recently said that the National Assembly complex would not be ready till August, despite pressure for the remodelling of the complex to be completed before the inauguration of the 10th Assembly.
Other projects include the design and construction of the Nigerian Cultural Centre and Millennium Tower (N69.35bn), the full scope development of FCT Highway 105 (Kuje Road) from the airport expressway to the outer Southern Expressway with Spur at Kyami District (N54.95bn), and the construction and equipping of hospitals at Gwarimpa Phase I (N3.03bn).
More projects include the construction of Bichi Township Roads (N1.40bn), the construction of Dawakin Tofa-Gwarzo-Dayi Road in Kano (N2bn), and the 5.4 kilometres Abuja- Keffi expressway and the dualisation of the 220 kilometres Keffi- Akwanga-Lafia- Makurdi federal roads in the North-Central geo-political zone of the country (N166.36bn).
Speaking at the APC South-East grand finale rally in Owerri, the new President, Tinubu, in February promised to continue with Buhari’s developmental programmes.
He said that Buhari’s eight-year reign was a retooling process, adding that he would invest in education, build infrastructure and be prudent should he be elected as the next president.
He said, “PDP stole Nigeria’s treasure. President Buhari’s eight years is a retooling process. PDPs are liars. We will continue with developmental programmes of APC, it will not stop.”
