To underscore the importance of infrastructure, Babatunde Fashola, the minister of works and housing, says it is the key to unlock Nigeria’s ailing economy.
The minister added that the current infrastructure drive of the federal government is the key to unleash trading and productivity, which is so strong, stressing that, without infrastructure, a nation cannot trade in the market.
Fashola stated this in Lagos on Thursday during an inspection tour of the ongoing reconstruction of the Apapa-Oshodi-Ojota-Oworonshoki Expressway project by the ministry of works and housing in Lagos.
The minister, who was on a progress assessment of the expressway, which is being reconstructed by the federal giovernment after over 40 years of its initial construction, disclosed that there was important first dimension which is the criticality of infrastructure to national economy.
He said this would help to disabuse the minds of some ill-informed politicians who say that infrastructure will not develop or grow the economy.
Read also: Fitch predicts slow economic growth for Nigeria in 2023
According to Fashola, the Apapa-Oworonsoki expressway is the major infrastructure asset for import and export business, because it connects to the two largest and busiest seaports in the country—the Tin Can Island and the Apapa ports.
He disclosed further that there has been very significant and measurable improvement in the road infrastructure in and out of the Apapa ports away from what it used to be in 2015. “Although the work is not finished, but the difference is clear.
There has been very measurable and quantifiable progress. What is left as you can see is part of the resurfacing between toll gate and Alapere and majorly concrete works between Cele and Mile2,” he said.
The minister further said that the bigger challenge for the ministry would be cleaning up the entire port city of Apapa at the end of the reconstruction projects. “The way some people have turned the highway into a market place; a mechanic workshop, vulcanizing site and all sort of very unacceptable and unlawful behaviour in the name of doing business,” said Fashola.
However, while inspecting the level of works at the fresh foods market at the Liverpool end of the Apapa-Oshodi expressway, especially the lightings and the roundabouts, Fashola urged Lagosians to always keep their surroundings clean. He told them that staying in a clean environment will help them live a healthy life.
“You have told me that the level of reconstruction done here is good by you; therefore, you must not cook here; the day you cook here and set fire on this bridge will be your last day of trading here,” he told the jubilant traders at the fresh food market under the Liverpool Bridge in Apapa.
According to Fashola, the ministry undertook the initiative of developing concrete shops for the traders so as to prevent a recurrence of what happen earlier in the year at the Apogbon and Ijora-Olopa bridge in Lagos.
