Offa Road: Uncovering The Hidden Shoddy Deals

By Saidu Abubakar

The unpatriotic and nonchalant attitude that mostly play out, coupled with immorality are common phenomenon rooted in corruption, especially within today’s Nigerian context. Everybody cannot be 100% bad, likewise, everybody cannot be that good. One wouldn’t be too far from the belief – why, of all the countries in Africa, Nigeria is unfortunate with the worst highways, just the way it has been with leadership.

In other climes within the continent, and beyond, roads receive the deserved utmost attention, considering their direct bearing with human lives, so, they don’t compromise the provision of standard roads. The duo of good road network and constant electricity are the bedrock of potential economies. On several occasions, road constructions slated (on paper) to have lifespan of 20-30 years, do end up becoming dilapidated in less than five years, simply because the contracts awarded are usually not inelastic in nature, and without recourse to insistence on professionalism, expertise and honesty of purpose.

This is common within government circle where parochially minded officials in charge of such projects get their hands soiled in questionable deals. Such ilk may have caught up with private business owners who are involved in projects of such magnitude.

The highway project being handled by two major business owners of northern Nigeria extraction – BUA (owned by Abdulsamad Ishaka Rabiu) and Dangote (owned by Aliko Dangote), both of whom have the largest number of trucks, plying almost every highway of the country, delivering their wares across the states, are reportedly in a pact with the FG as regards constructing some designated highways each .

Checks on the projects being undertaken by the two renown business tycoons, have led to some nasty revelations. Albeit the terms of agreement are not within the public purview, it was revealed that Dangote is handling the Kaduna aspect, the Kaduna western bypass in its full length, while BUA handles the other – Offa, linking Ibadan expressway.

The Nigerian factor is typically in play. We extraneously gathered from a credible source who is directly on site of the ongoing project, that the seed of dilapidation of the single lane highway is being sown at some portions of the concrete-laying project.

The road construction which is from Offa, terminating at the Ibadan-Lagos expressway, was meant to be delivered by December 2025 but as of now, (January, 2026), not more than 70 per cent has been haphazardly completed, according to our inside sources who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Further revelation include alleged diversion of cement consigned to the site directly by BUA trucks. Our source confirmed that hardly will a truckload of 900 bags of cement be delivered without the same truck coming out of the site with almost half load of the product to unknown destination. This is in addition to the sub-standard concrete mixture being fed with lesser number of bags of cement as against the required standard. Each machine is supposed to contain not less than 90 bags of cement but only about 60 is being used while the others develop wings.

On the required number of rods to be laid ahead of the concrete, we also gathered that at some portions, the rods are laid only on the edges of the road, while the center is left only with pure concrete (without rods). This raises durability questions.

Unfortunately, both BUA and the FG, are said to have supervisors respectively overseeing the project, under whose nose shady deals subsist while the main contractors who are Chinese nationals, look the other way, the end result of which is a poor product. Most of the corrupt acts are said to be usually perfected at night.

The source who pleaded anonymity swore that being an insider who works directly with the contractors on site, he is privy to the shady deals going on but it’s beyond them. “Drivers of the supervisors have been co-opted into the deal as whenever their bosses are set to move to site, they will inform those in charge on the site, so as to organise some disguised display of materials to suggest that all is well.

“This is a deal I know is going on and I’m not surprised if it’s without the knowledge of BUA. Moreover, even the cement-laden trucks consigned to site, hardly offload 50 per cent of the consignment to site. The rest vanish into thin air. It’s beyond the power of most of us working there as it is a high-level deal one should only watch with dismay,” our source lamented.

According to the source, the major concern is the breach of trust. “Instead of delivering a standard road project, it is going to be a short-lived highway which is going to, sooner or later, be death trap to innocent users of the road.

“My prayer is that this ugly development gets to the ears of BUA, so as to institute proper investigation, or on the other hand, the FG to insist on checkmating its own representatives on the project site.

“I cannot speak for the Kaduna project as I’m not privy to the nature of work going on there, but it won’t be out of place to checkmate both sites for quality job delivery.”

Our source further revealed that most of the affected areas by the hush-hush are outside the vicinity of the affected towns.

Meanwhile, the Kaduna Bypass aspect undertaken by Dangote from Mondo to Sabon-Tasha, is already a death trap as the semi-functional lane of the dual carriage, concretized, is used by both trucks, other vehicles, tricycles, motorcycles and the rest. It is short of adequate U-turns as in most cases, the only available U-turns get gridlocked for hours due to impatience and stubbornness of some truck drivers. This is as there are more kilometers to cover before turning to the other lane. The only remedy is when the project is fast-tracked and completed before the rainy season.