Dr. Olatunde Balogun, the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Global Property & Facilities International Limited, in this interview with Dayo Ayeyemi, spoke on issues derailing Nigeria’s quest for infrastructural development, among others

How do you perceive road decadence across the country?

There are two fundamental things when it comes to road infrastructure. In Nigeria, we don’t build roads well and we don’t maintain them. If we build the road well, it should not be something that will start developing potholes after six months or one year of completion. Example of a road that was well built is Adeola Odeku in Victoria Island, Lagos.

The road was built under former Governor Bola Tinubu and it has not experienced any repair because it was built well. If you do proper road construction, you will spend less on repairs. Government can use the road as a model to any road it wants to build in Nigeria, where you have proper drainage channels.

We also need to look for modern technology to develop road that can withstand stress. The current traditional method of road construction is not acceptable. The third leg of it is the ability to define road for a purpose. If you build a road for light movement and you have heavy movement on it, this would impact the road, no matter how well constructed.

I always use Third Mainland Bridge as an example. Every morning between the hour of 6 and 9, there is a static load on the bridge. Was the bridge designed to withstand such a load? From the beginning of the bridge to the end there is traffic hold-up. The bridge is a passage way; you drive away, but what you see is that as from 3pm to 10pm, there is static load for seven hours.

The road was not designed to withstand that. When we talk about power generation in Nigeria, what do you envision them to carry? Do we design such infrastructure to carry what they are doing now? If we are looking at one megawatt per 10,000 people and we design the infrastructure without taking into cognizance expansion, and we are now rebuilding the infrastructure afresh, this will cost us more money. We don’t have maintenance culture in this country. What we do always is purely repair and not maintenance.

What is the difference between repair and maintenance?

When we talk of repair, you are waiting for the road to deteriorate before you fix it, while maintenance is that you are monitoring every day to prevent the road from deterioration. For instance, if water is coming onto the road and weakening the ability of the road’s concrete work, if you wait until the road surface is waterlogged, you will do reconstruction, because what you should have done is to clear the drains and ensure that anytime it rains, there is no water on the road, so that the road is not impacted. That is maintenance.

Going by your analysis, does it mean that government prefer repair to maintenance?

It has to do with orientation. I used to analyse budget of both the federal and state governments to find out the amount budgeted for road construction and maintenance. I can assure you that they don’t even have budget for maintenance. Two things I know that create problem on road is lack of drainage and there is a small part of the road embankment that always collapse.

This will continue to encroach on the main road. It is not until the whole road collapses and part of it wiped out before you start bringing equipment and create traffic, thereby inconveniencing people in the name of road repair. These are the things we need to resolve. How much are you spending on infrastructure? How much are you budgeting to ensure that you monitor, so that the road does not go bad?

Why are we not having budget for maintenance?

Government, by design, is secular. I read a book a long time ago: ‘Not My Will,’ by (former President Olusegun) Obasanjo; he explained that there are certain policies of government in Nigeria that we need to look into, no matter who’s in government. When a government comes in, his intention is to construct road and at the end of four years leave office.

There is no longterm planning here. People plan for their term in office and this impact what we do in terms of budget planning. Everybody is interested in building roads and bridges without considering what we happen when they leave office. The guy coming also prepares for his own tenure. You are building bridges just for four years and not for 10 to 15 years.

We need to build this into policy that there are certain parts of governance that will not change, no matter who is in government. Infrastructure is key to development. If you are in government, you must be seeing following through the infrastructure master plan that has been laid. This is based on what somebody has started and you must continue. If you are coming new and you see that the road has been completed, all you need is to budget for the maintenance of the road and not its construction again.

Is there anything government can do to end road deterioration nationwide?

Every part of the world today knows that government has no business in infrastructure provision. Government business is policy. Government has no business in building road. Government can build secretariat, hospital and even now, hospital development is changing. We now have partnership – a private sector working with government, a kind of joint venture.

We need social housing that needs the attention of government. State cannot build road. You see what happened as regards Lagos-Ibadan expressway; it was initially transferred from government to private sector and later taken over by government. Right now, it is being given back to the private sector.

The Federal Government is not going to spend a dime on that road; instead, it will make money from the project. We have airport that was built by an individual and the facility did not cost the Federal Government one kobo. So, it is possible to put away some of the monies that we usually spend to build infrastructure and use them to provide education and to support medical facilities and research.

Will that be all?

It can also be used to provide water. If you go to restaurants abroad, they have two types of water – the one you can buy and the one that is free. In Nigeria, we do not have free water; we don’t even have water in our houses, not to talk of restaurant. So, this is one of the things that government can provide. They asked the president recently during one of his trips that ‘why are we not doing road?’ His answer was ‘where is the money? That is the reality.

Oil is our mainstay. Oil, as at last year, was N110 to N120 per barrel, but it is N48 per barrel today – meaning that our ability to generate money has reduced by N58.00. ‘Overhead is there, we have to pay salary, so what government is thinking about today is how to pay salaries before thinking about road. Yes, we owe contractors, but going forward, what do we do?’

The solution here is to take away government intervention, let government create policy alone. We are in an environment where somebody that wants to invest will begin to entertain fear that when one government leaves, he would be chasing the incoming one. Create an environment where if I invest in road for 10 years, my investment is secured, no matter any change in government.

Those are the things we need to deal with at the fundamental level. What we are seeing today was exactly what happened in 1990, where government revenue dwindled and did not have the capacity to provide infrastructure. That was why government started privatisation in those days.

Now that we are back to square one, let us make it a policy, let us take away government’s involvement in heavy construction, give it to private people and they will make money. For Lagos-Epe Expressway, if a rail line is built in that axis, it will generate revenue and everybody will be happy for it.

What is your take on vacant houses in Lagos and Abuja?

The reason is that we are not building right; there is a demand in the market and we are building for another set of people. We are building three bedroom, town houses, duplexes and detached houses when people are looking for one and two bedroom apartments. In Nigeria today, we are having a booming retail, meaning that our middle class is where the demand lies, outside the retail shops. However, we are building houses for the elites.

You have the population that needs houses, but nobody is building for them. I was analysing with somebody who was launching housing units last week and he said it will be N250,000 rent per month and I asked for his target. He told me that his target is the middle class.

Which middle class can afford payment for land or an apartment at N250,000 per month, excluding service charge and still need to pay children’s school fees? That person must be earning N800,000 per month. Is that a middle class? This is the problem and it will continue.

On the long run, there will be price readjustment, but people need to move to where the market is. There is no market for four and five bedroom apartments. There is market for one and two bedroom apartments and that is what people should focus their resources on. Those high-priced buildings will surely become hotels in the future or their developers will bring down their prices from three-bedroom to one bedroom.

What will be the implication on facility management?

Definitely, they will pay more for maintenance, though they are not making money. In the past, people used to build five bedrooms and 10 bedrooms, but everything is changing, the market is changing. If somebody is paying N2 million for a rent, the person will spend about N1.2 million to N2 for management, depending on the person’s capability to run the house.

So, that is about N5.5 million rent per year – meaning that the bigger the size of your space, the more money you spend to maintain it. It is, therefore, important that when people are creating product, they should create it for an existing market. The market that is available today is the market for one and two bedrooms. It is the market for social housing. The market is huge at that category, but there is no product to fill in.