Roads and Vehicles in Southern Nigeria

Presently the access road to one of the meeting houses of my church where I have been visiting for sometime now, is undergoing rehabilitation – no, patch up work - after a downtime of over four months. The road developed three large gullies which scared off all manner of vehicles during this period. This place is Owerri, Nigeria.

Nigeria is quite easily the largest black nation on the globe. Indeed, studies show that about 1 in every 4 black persons on earth is a Nigerian. Before the bringing together in 1914 of the two major halves (North and South) which make up Nigeria as presently constituted, its colonial masters (The United Kingdom) reasoned and thoroughly believed that these two rather incongruous parts will symbiotically benefit one from the other and actualize development in the shortest possible period.

How? The South was to take advantage of the rich land resources in the North while the North was to take advantage of the rich mineral resources of the South. Surely good connecting roads would be key, to achieve this goal. The Southern parts of Nigeria are in the rain belt with records of rainfall on more days than not, in every year. The rains are generally not associated with violent storms, much thundering etc. but steady downpours with attendant sheet and gully erosion. The activities of these heavy rains are responsible for much environmental degradation; washing away of both paved and unpaved roads among others.

Road transportation is the major mode of moving human and material cargo from point to point in Nigeria and any disruption to this system impacts heavily on socio-economic wellbeing of the area. The major road arteries in the western, eastern and south-southern parts, which combine to make up Southern Nigeria as a whole, are washed away during every rainy season. Inter City roads which are generally the charge of the Abuja based Federal government but which serve the locally based states through which they run, are always the worst hit. Every year most interstate roads become impassable the first few months into the wet season which begins about March or April yearly and subsist until a couple of months into the dry season which commences about November.

Large potholes, some as big as small lakes prevent cars, trucks, buses and even SUVs from using the roads until they dry up. Government-paid contractors then move in to patch up some of the most visible potholes in order to make them tolerable enough for returning Christmas and New Year holiday tourists from the north, Lagos and abroad to use as they visit their ancestral homes. This circle then repeats itself the following year and every year thereafter, only with a slight variation – fresh potholes emerging to crowd out old ones.

But how will the objective of the colonial masters be realized under these conditions? Development follows a road. It is like a vehicle or literally speaking a stream of vehicles laden with human and material deliverables going to a designated destination.
Proper design and construction of public roads is the answer. Even though it is not cheap, coupled with the fact that resources are scarce and made more so after corrupt and greedy public servants have plundered the public purse, there could still be found, alternative, cheaper than the conventional and effective road design concepts.

The conventional approach to road construction in unstable soil formations relies on the placement of a thick layer lateritish base plus a sizable stone/cement base course, before the preferred wearing course finishing with well made drains on both sides. The number of layers in a road often depends on the intended use of the road, but generally roads have three distinct layers. From bottom to top, the layers are the roadbed, the base course, and the wearing course. The strength of the layers is critical to the longevity of any road and current advancement in road stability research has produced agents that bring about this result.

This design model is very expensive for a developing nation such as Nigeria. It then means that a cheaper but durable approach must be sort for and utilized. This technology does exist.
This technology places emphasis upon soil stabilization using organic or inorganic compounds to hold soil particles together when compacted, to form a dense permanent base. It will substantially decrease maintenance and the associated downtime and costs on treated roads. With some formulas, organic compounds act upon organic fines contained in the soil through a catalytic bonding process to produce a strong “cementation” action. The chemical compounds that are used for soil stabilization are many and care must be taken to select the appropriate and suitable brand to be used.

The cost differential when compared with the conventional method can be quite substantial. Some of these compounds have the capacity to hold soil particles so well that dust and flaking action are forestalled even when in use without asphalting or other kinds of surfacing. Some of these compounds when used on clay formations reduce plasticity and effectively solidify it into dense strata. Road construction programs in the swampy terrains of the Niger Delta Region will benefit immensely from this technology.

Nigerians love to own their own vehicles both for reasons of prestige, utility and business. In the absence of an effective and efficient public mass transit system, they strive to provide for themselves this service. Their preference circumstantially tends toward purchase of sports utility vehicles (SUVs) which ply those rough roads with less stress than the regular cars and buses. Most who cannot afford brand new cars and buses settle for fairly used ‘jeeps’ and trucks imported from Europe, Asia and the United States and fix them when they breakdown with imported used parts or thoroughly used and condemned ones. They want to explore the mainly uncharted country, emulate their counterparts in the developed West to tour with kith and kin the lush countryside and sub regional neighbors on smooth motorable roads even with those used vehicles.

The tourism potentials of this great nation will not be tapped and realized if roads remain impassable. The style of governance will change in the near future due to pressure on the ruling class from within and from without, and then things will be done more efficiently and proactively.