Let us start with a confession: I frankly do not know the first road contract which the Muhammadu Buhari administration, now about to mark its first anniversary, awarded. But it would not be surprising if it turns out to be the rehabilitation of the terribly failed Ihiala section of the federal road which connects Anambra, Imo and Rivers states and passes through the towns of Okija, Ihiala and Uli in Anambra State; Egbuoma and Oguta in Imo State; and Omoku in Rivers State. Contract for the road construction was awarded in 1982 by the Federal Government following a Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting which Vice President Alex Ekwueme chaired because President Shehu Shagari was out of the country......

However, like many Nigerian projects, the history of the development of this road has been anything but wonderful. The road has yet to be completed a whole 34 years after work commenced on it, despite the fact that it leads to the country’s biggest oil and gas belt. In fact, the Ihiala section has over the years given the impression that this critical road is easily the worst road in the whole country. The good news is that work has started in earnest in the reconstruction of the failed section. The reconstruction of any part of this road is not included in this year’s budget, but the Buhari administration somewhat found money to fix it because it considers it an emergency. It is probably the first road contract it has awarded.

The awful condition of this road was brought to the attention of the Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, last December 29 when I returned his call the previous night after he sought to know my experience of travelling from Lagos to my hometown in Anambra State by road, with a view to knowing where and how the government could intervene in road development. Typical of him, he did not promise to fix the road immediately. In an article I wrote subsequently, I noted that Fashola not only likes to surprise his friends, but also loves to under-promise but over-delivers in all assignments, recalling my encounters with him over certain development projects in Lagos State when he was the governor from 2007 to 2011. On no occasion did he state categorically that he was going to implement any of them. In all the instances, one woke up to see that work had begun.

This is the case with the reconstruction of the Ihiala section of the Okija-Ihiala-Uli-Egbuoma-Oguta-Omoku Road. The minister must have sent in the last three months over five teams of surveyors and engineers from the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing as well as the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) to this road. He is determined to break the jinx which has prevented this relatively short road by including its completion and reconstruction in next year’s budget. But for the time being, he knows that the failed section which cut off the Ihiala people from the rest of the country needs urgent rehabilitation. He consequently has directed FERMA to complete the failed portion before the rains set in this year. And the agency has been working frenetically so as not to disappoint the minister......

Perhaps, the most important takeaway from Fashola’s well- known responsive leadership style is the validation of the theoretical framework that leadership, whether in the private or public sector, must be seen as caring in order to inspire the confidence of the followers. By going out of his way to look for funds for the reconstruction of a road which is not provided for in the current budget and which is not from his catchment area in a country notorious for Prebendal politics , the hundreds of thousands of people who use this road need not be told that Fashola is a caring minister. He has inspired their confidence in the Buhari administration. After all, like any other federal road in the Southeast, fixing the failed road was never on the radar screen of the Goodluck Jonathan presidency. As the old age aphorism goes, one good precept is better than one million words........
• Adinuba is head of Discovery Public Affairs Consulting.

www.m.guardian.ng/opinion/buharis-first-road/