An unpleasant rift has developed between Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State and ENL Consortium Limited, the contractor working on the 32-kilometre East End Wing of the earmarked Ibadan Circular Road project. But like the proverbial fight between two elephants, it is the ground that suffers the most. The negative impact on the people, for which the project was designed in the first place, can only be imagined.
In August 2017, the government of Sen. Abiola Ajumobi awarded, on a concession basis, the contract to ENL Consortium to build, operate and transfer the project within a timeframe of thirty-five years after delivering the project. ENL was to finance the project fully and recoup its investment via a road toll system.
ENL’s Good Faith
Backtrack fourteen years earlier, ICECON, an Italian firm, worked on the engineering designs and drawings but did not hand them over to the Oyo State Government because the latter did not pay for the services. Upon ENL Consortium’s contract award, the company approached ICECON, who had gone back to their country, to negotiate and pay for the release of the designs and drawings, taking up a responsibility that belonged to the Oyo State government in good faith.
Thereafter, ENL Consortium proceeded to pay compensation packages to farmers and families who were landowners along the route of the approved road project, also a responsibility the government was ideally supposed to bear.
With these two major preliminary steps sorted, ENL Consortium began the main construction activities in January 2018. A team of local and foreign engineers were engaged to update the initial engineering designs and drawings to align with the real conditions of the road at the time of review as well as accommodate modern technology standards and global best practices.
ENL Consortium also went ahead to accomplish the following milestones on the project; the commissioning of the survey and construction designs with incorporation of bridges, culverts and drainage systems for the 32km road; clearance and removal of topsoil from about 30km of the road; construction of earthworks on about 5km of the road; blasting of heavy stones and laying of stone base on about 1km of the road; installation of streetlights on about 2km along the route.
For the milestone that they have recorded, including the preliminary project obstacles that they cleared, and for the amount they have expended so far – a staggering N3,960,000,000.00 – one would have thought that the current government of Oyo State, under the leadership of Governor Seyi Makinde will continue the partnership for progress his predecessor, the Late Governor Abiola Ajimobi started. Well, not really. Afterall, this is Nigeria and politics will usually trump good reason.
In October 2020, incumbent Governor Makinde announced that ENL Consortium was terminated from the contract and a new contractor will be appointed to take over the project. For a company that has invested the kind of resources it did on the project, no one expects the company to accept this purported termination unchallenged.
The company is challenging the governor’s purported termination and has called on the general public – especially investors, lenders, and contractors – to desist from honouring any “invitation by Oyo State Government to participate in any tender, offer, bid, solicitation, or any other procurement process in relation to the Ibadan Circular Road as they (ENL) remains the lawful concessionaire of the project under the terms of a Concession Agreement which is currently subject to a dispute resolution process.”
People are at the receiving end of this witch-hunt
Whichever way the matter goes, time will always be on the essence and the core objective – the people who ought to be the beneficiaries of the project – will suffer greatly.
The vehicular traffic that the Circular Road is meant to solve remains. Travellers going southwards or northwards through Ibadan will still experience painful traffic jams that rob them of valuable time while giving them physical and emotional stress.
The many workers who have been engaged in one way or the other, within the construction work ecosystem, will be grappling with the economic implications of this unjustified truncation of the project and hence their services and wages.
Ibadan residents, and the Oyo State people in general, who would be wishing for the completion of the project so they can enjoy a less-herculean city traffic situation will be wandering in despair.
Potentially, the state government will have to deploy scarce resources in settlement of outstanding from the purported contract termination. From many angles and through whatever lens the matter is viewed, the people stand to suffer the most.
Leadership is a sacred call to service. There is no other way to put this. The route the governor is currently taking puts the people of the state at the receiving end of this witch-hunt. Whatever political benefit he thinks this serves is personal and in our opinion, selfish. The residents of the state and Nigerians in general benefit nothing from his current attitude and stance towards ENL. We call on leaders across cultural, ethnic and religious divides to stand up to this. At the end of the day, if we do not do this, we repeat the old playbook that has seemed to bedevil our democracy; politics will trump the interest of the people. May this not be the case.
Folarin, an IT expert lives in Ibadan Oyo State
