Geoffrey Anyanwu, Awka
The nation’s policy makers at the weekend came under severe attack by the Nigerian Engineers who tackled them over long delay in completing the dilapidated Enugu-Onitsha Expressway and the mode of appointment of ministers into certain federal ministries.
A guest lecturer at the maiden edition of Engr. Emeka Eze Annual Lecture series instituted by Awka branch of the Nigeria Society of Engineers (NSE), Sir Chris Okoye, while delivering his lecture on the theme, “A case for good governance: The role of the Procurement Process,” noted that since 1999, the Federal Government has been putting money into the Enugu-Onitsha Road with no commensurate result.
At the lecture, which was also in commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of NSE, Okoye observed that the road had regrettably remained in a deplorable situation because the right things had not been done buy those that were entrusted with policy making.
Okoye blamed the federal lawmakers in the area for the problem, alleging that they were diverting the allocation for the road to do the roads leading to the homes and communities.
“The amount of money the federal government has put into the Enugu-Onitsha road does not equate the work done. Our legislators in the National Assembly should explain why it is so.
“If you go to Federal Government officials, they tell you the amount of money they have put in the South East is more than the amount they have put in other zones in road construction.
“So, one begins to wonder where the money goes to. The answer is that the money has been going to the legislators at the national level, who use the money to build roads leading to their homes and villages.”
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Okoye, who is a civil engineer said such were possible because the nation does not have strong institutions and warned that no meaningful achievement would be recorded in Nigeria in the absence of a proper regulatory system.
He said, “That is the problem of not having institutions and core professionals in the ministry to drive policies and implementation agencies that are professionally and commercially driven. If you do not have institutions and systems to drive a process, we may only be deceiving ourselves.”
The fact that sometimes we have temporary success does not mean we have sustainable growth.