Infrastructure is the stock of basic facilities and capital equipment needed for functioning of a country as well as the states in it.

Infrastructures can be described generally as the set of interconnected structural elements that provide framework supporting an entire structure of development. It is an important term for judging a country, region or state’s and individual’s developments/status.

The term typically refers to the technical structures that support a society, such as roads, water supply, sewers, electrical national grids, telecommunications, and so forth, and can be defined as “the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions” (Fulmer, 2009).

Going by history and with is what obtainable at the moment, Niger State is considered one of the luckiest State in the North Central geopolitical Zone of the country owing to its land mass, economic potentials and of course abundant Natural endowment but infrastructure deficit in the State is obviously visible despite the huge yearly budgetary allocations to that effect.

It’s clearly obvious that for any any state to attract investments into its region there are need to have good infrastructure system in place that guarantees access to the market and other factors of production.

No doubt, the development of infrastructure is critical to the regeneration of Niger state economy, as a way of attracting investors to the state but day in, day out, the state government had over the years allocated billions for infrastructure development, ironically, not much on ground to depicted the huge yearly budgetary allocations for the latter.

According to Niger State Governor, Abubakar Sani Bello Lolo in a recent interview with journalists in Minna, the state capital he said since the inception of his administration in 2015, the provision of infrastructure has remained one of his priorities and reiterated the commitment of his government to continue to provide infrastructures that have direct bearing on the people as well as stimulate economic growth in the state.  

The Governor further reaffirmed that despite the daunting economic and security challenges, the state government will continue to provide dividends of democracy to the people. 

“Let me assure Nigerlites, that this government will sustain the momentum of delivering projects that have a direct bearing on daily activities of the people”, he said. 

The governor noted that his administration has constructed over 40 civil engineering projects, 80 mechanical/electrical projects, while 30 public buildings have been built across the state among other projects.

“Most projects started from the beginning of this government in 2015 with most of them completed and already been put to use, while others are still ongoing”. he said.

Despite all said above, based on investigation and a vox pop conducted within Suleja Local Government Area of Niger state, Many Nigerlites still believed that not much has been done on the basic infrastructure development as many roads, public structures like schools and others are in a deplorable and shameful condition with the state government paying less attention or lip service to it.

Niger State still faces problems with providing basic infrastructure such as poor roads, inadequate supply of electricity, poor proper waste disposal system, poor security, bad drainage system, inadequate source of water supply.

A couple of months ago the Senate Seeks N300billion intervention for deplorable roads in Niger State, asking the federal government to, as a matter of urgency, consider the N300 billion Emergency Intervention Fund for the reconstruction of deplorable federal roads in Niger State and to declare a state of emergency on the critical roads in Niger State, which they said, links economic corridors in the North and South.

This, they said, would facilitate the infrastructural rehabilitation efforts of the government to support ease of business and economic recovery.

The call was a sequel to the deliberation on a motion on the deplorable nature of ‘Trunk A’ roads in the state, sponsored by the Deputy Whip, Sabi Abdullahi (APC, Niger North).

Leading the debate, the lawmaker decried the poor state of federal roads in Niger State while he referred to a recent protest by some truck and tanker drivers to that effect.

He said while the state has the longest federal road network of 2,263km out of a total of 32,000km of federal road network, they have caused untold hardships to the users.

The federal roads in Niger State stretched from the Abuja – Kaduna end to the Jebba – Mokwa – Makera – Tegina – Birnin Gwarimpa – Kaduna road to the Mokwa – New Bussa – Agwara – Kigera end which lies to the border with the republic of Benin, he explained.

“Overall, the following are critical linkage roads within Niger State that provide logistical and vehicular movements between the North and South; especially the South-west and North-west Corridors.

“Indeed, the massive haulage of heavy industrial goods such as petroleum products, iron rods, cement, finished manufactured goods, machines and equipment, electronic materials and goods, building materials etc, in which trucks and tankers are overloaded pits great pressure on the roads and thus are seriously devastating to the state of the roads,” he said.

Mr Abdullahi also complained that all the major link roads have failed with fatal accidents occurring on a daily basis resulting in loss of lives, goods and vehicles.

The current rate of funding of federal roads in the state is unfortunately dismal and cannot deliver, which has led to many of the projects abandoned by contractors, he added.

The Senate resolved that a National Legislative Roundtable on the State of Infrastructure for Economic Development be held, to bring all stakeholders in the transport and logistics industries together with a view to identifying urgent actions to address the current challenges.

The lawmakers also urged the Federal Government to direct the Federal Ministry of Works to carry out emergency stabilisation of the failed portions of Bida – Lapai – Lambatta road to ease the current suffering and rate of accidents and loss of goods and investments in the road.

No doubt, the demand for infrastructure is growing at an unusual rate due to rapid increase in population, the ability of infrastructure to accommodate growth depends on the ability of the state government to maintain and improve the condition of existing infrastructure.

Source: StreetReporters.ng

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