The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, has undertaken to redevelop twenty-one roads spread across the six geo-political zones of Nigeria.
The approval of the offer from the NNPC to deploy some of its tax liabilities towards reconstructing the roads, formed a highlight of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, on Wednesday.
Babatunde Fashola, works and housing minister, told State House reporters after the weekly FEC meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, that NNPC will commit N621.2 billion to fix 1804.6 kilometres of road.
Nine of the roads are in the Northcentral; two each in Northwest, Northeast and South-south. The Southeast and Southwest have three roads each.
Explaining the concentration of roads in the Northcentral, Fashola said they are in Niger, explaining “Niger is major storage centre for NNPC.”
Fashola explained that Executive Order 7 signed by President Muhammadu Buhari, allows private sector operators to identify infrastructure such as roads for which they would deploy in advance the taxes that they should have paid.
The minister said: “Out of those 21 roads, nine are in the North-Central, particularly Niger State; and the reason is that Niger State is major storage centre for NNPC.’’
“Then, in the Southwest, you have the Lagos-Badagry Expressway, the Agbara Junction, and you also have Ibadan to Ilorin – the Oyo-Ogbomosho section.
“In the Southeast, you have the Aba-Ikot-Ekpene in Abia and Akwa Ibom; so, that is a major link; then you have Umuahia-Ikwuano-Ikot-Ekpene road again and so on so forth.
“So, in the Northwest, it is Gadar Zaima-Zuru-Ganji road and also Zaria- Funtua-Gusau to Sokoto Road.
“In the Northeast, it is the Cham-Numan, Bali-Serti and Gombe-Biu roads.
