Featured

Communities Groan Over Deplorable Road Abandon By AfDB, C’River Govt

Published

4 years ago

September 9, 2022

Cross River State government and African Development Bank (AFDB) jointly awarded the Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road for construction under the Cross River Rural Access and Mobility Project, CR-RAMP, the project remains abandoned, while the supposed beneficiaries continue to lament deaths, loss of livelihoods and increasing poverty due to the deplorable state of the road. CYRIL OGAR WRITE on the plight of the communities

Road cutting across North Ukelle in Yala Local Government Area in Cross River State which on a free flow drive takes 49-minutes journey on the 30.3 km road from Yahe Junction, Yahe Township to Wanikade in North Ukelle is a hellish experience. Not just because the fare is outrageous, but due to the attendant ill health that communities along the corridor of the abandoned road are exposed to.

The deplorable state of Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road has become a perpetual source of sorrow to residents of the affected communities, including Ebo, Okpodon, Ezekwe, Igede, Wanokom, Wanikade, and Wanehim. Smallholder farmers and traders in these communities say the road has affected their livelihoods.

They find it almost impossible to take their farm produce and goods to markets in neighbouring communities. Access to markets outside the state, including the neighbouring Benue and Ebonyi states, especially in the rainy season, has become a daydream for them.

In the rainy season, the road becomes completely non-motorable. Many parts of the road have been cut off by gully erosion, making it difficult for vehicles to ply the route even in the dry season. While trying to maneuver the road, motorists are often stuck in potholes, the majority of which have become deep like pits.

Lorry drivers who regularly ply the Yahe-Wanokom-Benue border route. Narrating their ordeal during their trips to the communities, Eric said he often spent a minimum of N20,000 repairing his truck each time it developed faults after plying the road.

“For instance, I’m changing a broken spring at N12,000; two new hangers at N2,000 per one and then workmanship N4,000, making everything N20,000, which is the lowest I often spend.”

Eric, who said he only drove through the road to markets in the communities in the rainy season with his tipper truck, lamented how miscreants blocked the road and extorted truck drivers N1,000 to N1,500 every market day.

Also speaking, Gabriel Obok, who owns a provision store at Wanikade market, where he sells different brands of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks, said his business had taken a hit.

“A trip that ought to take me 90 minutes from Wanikade to Abakaliki often takes the whole day due to the bad state of the road.”

In the same vein, Ugede lamented that the agrarian communities along the road often grappled with food wastage due to poor road networks to the markets.

Although some transporters make brisk business, charging exorbitant fees due to the nature of the road, the consequences for them far outweighed the gain. Christian Samson, a motorcyclist in the area, said he charged about N2,500 during the dry season and as high as N5,000 for a single passenger without luggage when it was the rainy season. Samson lamented that this had led to quick wear and tear of automobiles and increase in the prices of food and other commodities in the area.

A farmer cum teacher Veronica Oben, who lives in Wanihem community, narrated the effects of the abandoned road on her farming business and the education in her community.

The most painful part is that I buy farm inputs, especially herbicides and seedlings at a high price, but after harvest, I do not make much gain because it is always difficult to take them to markets outside my community due to the condition of the road.

Oben, who also teaches at Seat of Wisdom School, Wanikade, further lamented that the bad state of the road had adversely affected education in Wanihem community and other communities along Yahe-Benue border route.

According to her, no teacher transferred from other places to Wanihem, Wanikade would accepted to stay and work in the affected communities.

Most public schools in the community are empty. Some have only headmasters, principals and few indigenous teachers recruited within the community. As the road gets worse, life becomes more miserable.

Tales of deaths, accidents and near misses

The poor state of the road has added to the statistics of preventable deaths in most communities along the corridor.

Out of 100 recorde d deaths annually, 95 could be attributed to the bad state of the road. He said it was often difficult to access healthcare in neighboring communities when emergency needs arose. “For one to get proper healthcare services, the person has to go to Ogoja. It can take about three hours during the dry season and six hours when it’s the rainy season.

In recent, three persons from Wanokom died on the road in January this year when they were being rushed to hospital at Yahe.

Wanokom to Yahe is about 23 minutes by bike but it took three hours to get to hospital. “We experienced hell before we reached the hospital. We tried using a car, but the car got stuck on the road. We used a bike but there was a delay on the road and before we reached the hospital, the woman had fainted three times. She almost died on our way to the hospital but it is only God who knows how he saved her that day,” she recounted.

Awarded in 2011 but abandoned

The contract for the Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road was first advertised in December 2010 and awarded on May 18, 2011, under the Cross River Rural Access and Mobility Project, CR-RAMP, to Emamed Nigeria Limited, ENL, at the sum of N792. 863 million by the African Development Bank Group. The project, pegged at 37.5km, was designed to be implemented through a special arrangement by the State Project Implementation Unit (SPIU) under the supervision of the Cross River State Ministry of Works.

Weeks after the contractor moved to site and tarred less than 5km of the 37.5km road, work ceased. Since then, the project has remained abandoned and communal efforts to get the contractor to return to site have proved abortive.

Evidence from worn out tarmacs observed by AljazirahNigeria showed that Emamed Nigeria Limited, ENL, only constructed the road from Yahe to a point not even to Ebo, the neighbouring community.

The CR-RAMP is a pro-poor project meant to address the challenges of rural roads in the state jointly financed by the African Development Bank (AFDB) and the Cross River State government, with each accounting for 34.52 and 65.48 per cent of the total cost of civil works respectively.

Emamed Nigeria Limited was paid in full

Contrary to the claim by the staff member of Emamed Nigeria Limited, Adeyemi Gabriel, that the ENL abandoned Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road project because government refused to pay, documents and details obtained from the African Development Bank Group revealed that it released the complete contract amount, N792.863 million, to the contractor.

A sum of N777.205 million was first allocated for the project. However, financial review and amendment were done and the sum of N15.657 million was added to the allocated funds, bringing the total contract funds to N792.863 million.

The AFDB released the last tranche, N80 million of the contract funds, to Emamed Nigeria Limited on April 8, 2016.

Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road was part of Lot 8, CR-RAMP/lot 8/2010/PRO/CW/vol.1, which included two other roads making a total length of 63.55km (37.5 km +24.85km +1.2km),” an official of the AfDB said.

The bank also confirmed that funds were released directly to the contractor based on monthly or periodic certificates for works completed and validated by the supervision consultants before submission to the bank.

According to AfDB, a total of 406.7km, equivalent to 85 per cent of a total planned length of 477.5 km of CR-RAMP, were completed to final pavement level before the project was closed in 2016.

However, it is contradicting how AFDB certified and paid Emamed Nigeria Limited in full for an abandoned project. Furthermore, the abandoned 37.5km Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road is the evidence to disprove AfDB’s claim that 406.7km of the total 477.5km of CR-RAMP were completed.

The fact that Emamed Nigeria Limited received full payment for the project, therefore, means that AfDB included the abandoned Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road project in its 85 per cent completed projects.

In 2017, Governor Ben Ayade re-awarded Yahe-Wanokom-Wanikade-Benue border road to Sydney Construction Nigeria Limited at the sum of N3.8 billion.

Unlike Emamed Nigeria Limited, which constructed a few kilometres before abandoning the project, Sydney Construction Nigeria Limited never started work on the road.

Residents of communities along the Cross River–Benue border road said they had become weary of government’s promises on the road.

Share on Facebook

Business

Turning Africa’s Raw Materials Into Wealth: The ARMS 2026 Industrial Agenda

Published

3 days ago

September 29, 2026

The Gleamer

By Joel Ajayi

For decades, Africa’s vast natural resources have powered industries and economies far beyond the continent, while many African countries have remained largely exporters of unprocessed commodities and importers of finished products.

That familiar pattern is now coming under renewed scrutiny as policymakers, researchers, investors and industrialists seek to change the direction of Africa’s resource economy.

At the centre of that conversation is the second edition of the Africa Raw Materials Summit (ARMS 2026), scheduled for October 19 and 20 at the Abuja Continental Hotel, Abuja, under the theme: “From African Feedstock to African Factories.”

Organised by the Raw Materials Research and Development Council (RMRDC), the summit is being positioned as more than another gathering of policymakers and industry stakeholders. It is intended to provide a platform for confronting the structural challenges that have kept African raw materials largely disconnected from local manufacturing.

Africa has for years operated largely within a “pit-to-port” economic model, exporting raw materials while importing expensive finished products.

Speaking at a press conference ahead of the summit on Tuesday in Abuja, the Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of RMRDC, Prof. Nnanyelugo Martin Ike-Muonso, said the event would bring together policymakers, investors, researchers, technology providers and industrialists to develop practical strategies for transforming Africa’s abundant natural resources into industrial wealth.

The challenge, therefore, is not simply the abundance of resources, but the continent’s ability to transform those resources into industrial value, employment, technology and wealth within Africa.

Nigeria alone, according to the RMRDC, has more than $582.4 billion in documented non-renewable natural resources, while the wider continent possesses substantial deposits of critical minerals, agricultural raw materials and industrial feedstock.

Yet, the benefits of this resource endowment have often been constrained by inadequate processing capacity, weak infrastructure, limited technology, financing gaps and fragmented regional value chains.

From Dialogue to Industrial Action

ARMS 2026 builds on the maiden edition held in May 2025, which attracted more than 1,000 delegates from across the world.

The inaugural summit also witnessed the unveiling of the Ten-Year Raw Materials Transformation Roadmap (2025–2034) by the Minister of State for Industry, Senator John Owen Enoh.

The roadmap was designed around areas including technological capability, climate-resilient processing and backward integration, establishing a policy framework for greater domestic utilisation of Africa’s raw materials.

The second edition is expected to move the conversation further by bringing policy, capital, technology and industrial stakeholders around practical mechanisms for turning raw materials into locally manufactured products.

One of the major proposals highlighted by the RMRDC is the 30 per cent Mandatory Value Addition Bill, which seeks to establish a statutory minimum level of value addition to Nigerian raw materials before export.

The Council says the proposed framework could support job creation, import substitution, foreign-exchange conservation and increased manufacturing contribution to the economy.

Building the Infrastructure for Value Addition

The industrial transformation envisaged by ARMS 2026 goes beyond legislation.

A major concern is the “missing middle” between where raw materials are produced and where factories are located.

Poor transportation networks, inadequate cold-chain facilities, weak rural roads, limited testing and certification infrastructure and border-related delays can make locally sourced materials more expensive and less competitive.

Consequently, logistics and infrastructure constitute one of the five principal pillars of the summit.

The objective is to develop more reliable corridors connecting farms and mines with processing centres and manufacturing facilities, thereby reducing losses and improving the movement of industrial inputs.

The Digital Dimension

Technology is also becoming an important part of the Council’s strategy.

The RMRDC says it has developed the Nigeria Integrated Information Statistical System for Raw Materials and Products (NISSRAMP), described as a digital repository containing information on feedstock deposits, specifications, production outputs and industrial absorption rates.

The Council has also highlighted its transition towards paperless operations and its certification as a Data Controller/Processor of Major Importance by the Nigeria Data Protection Commission.

Such digital infrastructure could provide investors and manufacturers with better information about the availability and characteristics of raw materials while supporting more informed industrial planning.

Turning Waste Into Industrial Inputs

Another major component of ARMS 2026 is the proposed expansion of the circular economy.

The summit will examine how agricultural by-products, mine tailings, scrap metals and biomass can be recovered and reused as inputs for new production processes rather than being treated simply as waste.

The RMRDC argues that such an approach could lower raw-material costs while supporting more sustainable and climate-resilient manufacturing systems.

For Africa, where industrial expansion must increasingly balance economic development with environmental considerations, waste industrialisation could become an important part of the continent’s manufacturing conversation.

From National Production to African Value Chains

The African Continental Free Trade Area is another important element of the summit’s agenda.

The RMRDC sees AfCFTA as an opportunity to create regional value chains in which raw materials sourced in one African country can be processed and supplied to manufacturers in another.

Under such a model, Africa would move beyond simply exporting commodities to external markets and develop stronger internal networks for supplying chemicals, refined minerals, agricultural inputs and other industrial materials across national borders.

This approach places regional integration at the heart of Africa’s industrialisation strategy.

Bridging Research and Capital

A recurring weakness in many developing economies is the gap between research and commercialisation.

Innovations may emerge from universities, research institutions and laboratories without receiving the financing, equipment or market connections required to become commercially viable.

ARMS 2026 intends to address that gap through technology commercialisation and capital linkages, connecting research outputs with investors, development finance institutions and industrial off-takers.

The RMRDC has also cited partnerships with the Bank of Industry for commercial-scale post-harvest processing and a South-South technology-transfer partnership with the National Innovation Centre par Excellence in Shanghai, China.

A Larger Industrial Conversation

The scale of ARMS 2026 is expected to be significantly larger than the maiden edition.

The organisers project more than 1,800 delegates from all 54 African countries and global industrial partners.

The programme will feature high-level policy dialogues, technical panels, an advanced raw materials and technology exhibition, industrial site visits and the African Raw Materials Industry Awards.

The exhibition, in particular, is expected to showcase locally fabricated processing machinery, advanced domestic materials, green chemicals and engineered commercial inputs.

Beyond the speeches and exhibitions, however, the real significance of ARMS 2026 will ultimately depend on what happens after the summit.

Africa’s challenge has never been a shortage of raw materials. The more difficult question has been how to transform those resources into factories, products, skilled employment, technology and sustainable economic opportunities.

For Nigeria and the rest of the continent, the proposed shift from “pit-to-port” to “feedstock-to-factory” therefore represents a broader debate about the future structure of African economies.

ARMS 2026 seeks to place that debate firmly on the industrial agenda — with value addition, technology, finance, infrastructure, circular production and regional trade at the centre.

If the commitments and partnerships generated by the summit translate into measurable industrial activity, the event could provide another platform for Africa to examine how its enormous resource base can support stronger domestic manufacturing.

The message from the organisers is clear: the continent’s raw materials should not only leave African soil as commodities; they should increasingly become the foundation for African industrial production

Share on Facebook