- Cement’ll Play Key Role in Infrastructural Development – Osinbajo
Cement has been positioned to aid Nigeria’s infrastructural development in a very significant way.
Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo hinted at this fact while speaking during the inauguration of $350m BUA Cement and coal powered plants in Sokoto State on Tuesday.
Osinbajo expressed confidence that better roads would be built using cement.
Already major road projects are being done using cement. Among them include the 28 kilometre Itori-Ibeshe concrete road inaugurated by the Federal Government in 2016, the two kilometre Apapa-Wharf road being rehabilitated currently.
In addition to these, the Federal Executive Council approved the construction of the 42.5km Obajana-Kabba road using concrete.
The Vice President noted that with Nigeria’s current capacity in cement production and the effective control of producers over the price, it was possible as a matter of national interest to begin a programme of building roads with concrete.
He said, “We have plenty capacity to consume cement locally. Two issues I believe will require attention: the price of cement and concrete roads.
“For the first, I know that it is possible between Samad and his brother, Dangote, that they can bring down the price of cement. The second issue is concrete roads. We can change the narrative in road construction dramatically if we think through using concrete for road building in Nigeria.
“The possibility of building cheaper and better roads is one which I would like to throw to all our cement producers. If we can recognise road construction in Nigeria, we can do something by simply deciding to build our roads with concrete and ensure that we can do so cheaper than current method being adopted.”
Osinbajo said, after many years of inadequate attention being paid to national infrastructure, the next few years would be defining for infrastructural development in Nigeria.
He said, “The national integrated infrastructure master plan estimates that an investment of $3tn is needed to bridge the infrastructure gap and increase our infrastructure asset from the current level of about 35 per cent of Gross Domestic Product to at least 70 per cent by 2015.
“To be where we ought to be in infrastructural development, investment in construction materials in particular is crucial. Cement of course literally becomes the building block for much of the infrastructure that we need in Nigeria today; from housing to roads, bridges and others.”
He added, “Being that Nigeria produces over 40 million metric tonnes of cement annually, more than any other country in Africa. Nigeria’s huge market size, a high urbanization rate of 3.5 per cent, low per capita cement consumption rate of 125kg, and an estimated housing deficit of 17 million are key drivers of the growth of Nigerian cement industry in the medium term.”
