Nigeria, West Africa: Rising Need for Cement Use in Road Construction

In an August 2015 AllAfrica Online Magazine article, “Nigeria: Rising Need for Cement Use in Road Construction” Crusoe Osagie discusses the need to extend the use of cement beyond building homes and bridges to paving the vast number of dilapidated roads in the country. Osagie exclaimed, “Moving around Nigeria and within states and local governments in the country by road will certainly embarrass any average Nigerian. During the wet season the condition of the roads is even worse.”

As a university student in the 1990s, on a trip from Ekpoma to Ewatto, in the Esan Central area of Edo State, he about 20 other students had to get out of the bus to continue the journey on foot because the road to that village ended abruptly in a deep and dangerous gully, which no vehicle could travel on. Later, in 2005, the same thing happened when he led a large number of extended family members from his father’s house in Oredo Local Government Area, Benin City, to the home of his future father-in-law in the Government Reserved Area (GRA), for his wedding ceremony. Elaborately dressed in traditional bini attire, all had to abandon all the cars to walk to the venue where the ceremony was to take place in the GRA.

There are alarming statistics of the number of people who are killed or maimed daily in accidents that occur due to the poor states of Nigerian roads. To underscore the enormity of this statistics occurring on the roads in Nigeria, a recent survey found that there is no individual in the country, who has not had a family member killed or maimed in a road accident. Osagie stated, “To say that the roads are in a sorry state is to put it mildly. Many people residents in various parts of the country have had to abandon their houses and homes simply because the access roads to such properties have been obliterated and become non-existent.”

This incontrovertible fact about the state of the roads and highways in Nigeria, should speak loudly to governments and authorities responsible for the construction and maintenance of the roads in the country. They need to know by now that it is time to change tactics and approach to road management.

Locally Produced Cement for Roads  Some experts are of the opinion that a good place to begin the paradigm shifts with respect to road management in the country is the diversification of the material used for road construction and maintenance.

Osagie said that virtually all of the roads in Nigeria were made and maintained using the single alternative material and method, which has failed. Construction experts are now asking why cement which Nigeria now produces locally in very large quantities has not been introduced in road making to save the country from the five-decade-long embarrassment. The fact that Nigeria has failed to use cement for road making is most embarrassing because other countries such as India, the United States, and others have successfully used cement to make roads and maintain them for up to a century or more.

US Cement Roads  Cement and concrete played a major role in the construction of the United States Interstate Highway System during the past 60 years. The national focus has shifted from building new highways to maintaining and repairing the existing highway network. Recent advances in concrete technology enable highway contractors to rehabilitate the nation’s highway system to extend its useful life with minimal disruption of traffic.

According to the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), about 60% of the the US interstate system is concrete, especially in urban areas where heavy traffic loads are anticipated. Concrete was selected, in part, because of its durability—can support heavy loads, such as truck traffic, with less deformation than asphalt. Today, concrete has become the least expensive alternative for new construction on a first-cost basis in addition to maintenance costs being generally lower. In addition, concrete generally has a useful life of twice that of asphalt. Concrete commonly serves 20 to 30 years without needing major repair.

Federal Government Optimism  Mike Onolememen, Nigerian Former Minister of Works, said earlier in 2015 that the federal government was set to begin trying the construction of roads using cement and concrete. Rigid pavement—another name for cement concrete surface—was the use of cement, rather than asphalt, and was expected to make roads last longer in Nigeria.

He said two roads would be the first beneficiaries after the approval of this year’s budget. “We have identified major road works where we want to experiment rigid pavement design, and we have commissioned consultants:

• The Kachia-Baro road to connect the Federal Capital Territory to Baro Port in Niger
• The Ikorodu-Sagamu Road in Lagos state

“We have completed the design of the rigid pavement. Once the budget is approved, they will come on stream,” he said. He added that the gesture was in line with the quest for best practices in the country. He urged cement companies to declare what investments they were prepared to bring into the road construction business as it relates to the use of their products.

Cement Production Capacity Rising  All across Nigeria cement companies are springing up, churning out millions of tons of cement produced straight from limestone. With the annual cement consumption in Nigeria still a little less than 20 million tons annually. Since the combined local production capacity of cement from the three major producers in Nigeria—Lafarge, Dangote & Bua Cement—now stands around 42 million tons annually, the need to diversify the use of the essential product becomes indubitable.

Although most of the cement used in the country is for building houses (which the country so desperately needs) and  bridges, the almost 80% of roads in the country are in desperate need of paving … road construction definitely is that new use to which cement must be applied.

The new administration, led by General Muhammadu Buhari, must give the diversification of cement use towards road construction a major consideration—not only for the improvement of the state of the nation’s roads but to create a significant number of jobs, and to boost the ailing economy.

To read the entire article, please go to: http://allafrica.com/stories/201508250078.html.

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