igbo2011:

What are the best Nigerian construction firms? The firms that actually get the job done? Why doesn#t the FG find those companies and only use them?

No indigenous construction company get government job on merit.
It is either you played your part during political campaign by the way of financial support or you are ready to give some percentage back to
the awardee.

Depilot:

There is nothing difficult in road building.
The issue here in Nigeria is selfishness, low-life mentality and lack of wisdom. A good example will be Akala of Oyo state and his little girl friend, called Femi Babalola. Femi supposed to be an engineer that was fronting for Akala during his 4years term. It wasn't only reported, but also confirmed that Akala got 80% of the amount of every single contract appointed to his girl friend.
Therefore, all the road constructions that were done by Femi did not last for 6 months before they were completely dissolved or dragged away by rain water.

So, to answer your question, road construction in general isn't a big deal, but heartless politicians in Nigeria refuse to the right thing.

B I N G O !!! but its 50% cut not 80, wtf

It is not that difficult except when the people that build it are cretinous quacks like LoveKing with their scrupulous "B.Eng":

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-746243.64.html#msg9032989

my own personal experience as a road engineer in enugu. Some reputable and known construction firms that works for enugu state govt does some near excellent jobs, but the same contractor working on federal govt road project here in enugu does some damn shoddy job that you begin to wonder. It all boils down to quality control and supervision. Because we are on ground we supervise materials to be used by the contractor right from the earth work stage,contcrete work,stone base and asphalting. The federal supervisor based in abuja cares less about what you are cos he might not traverse through hat road in all his years of existence.

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Re: What Is So Difficult In Road Building?
« #11 on: Today at 12:20:53 AM »
kudos to all guru's in d house, can any 1 explain how to install windows vista on a new free dos pc. tnxs


google it

only in 9ja

How many people know that former senator Iyiola Omisore is a fellow of the Nigeria Society of Engineering with National Diploma as the last known certificate while those foolish old men will ask graduates to write exams and pay fees? Nigeria's case is almost hopeless!

What kind of road do u expect me to construct when i spend 40% of d contract fees on bribing govt officials!

The problem with our roads are basically two folds:

1. Poor Construction/Substandard materials: A lot of contractors would argue like "Femiaji" that they spend so much to line the pockets of government officials and they still have to make profit. So they cut corners by using substandard materials and do not follow road construction standards (the government officials look the other way when they have been sorted out). For example the road pavement for a state road that would carry heavy duty trucks should be at least 250mm thick (still subject to design parameters) but what you normally get is between 50 - 100!

2. Poor Maintenance Culture: Even for roads that are properly constructed, you still see some of them go bad in no time because we simply can't maintain them. For example, the roads should be free of sands and water at all times because these two materials act on the binder (bitumen) and weaken it. Once the binder is weakened, the stones and other pavement materials gets shattered with incesant pressures from vehicle tyres. This is common in areas where most trunk C roads are earth roads and the car tyres bring sands from the earth roads to deposit it on the trunk B or trunk A roads that are tarred. When rain falls, the water acts together with the sand on the road surface with pressure supplied by vehicle tyres. Most of our roads don't have through drainages to service them so they retain water often.

The third likely problem is poor road design. But this is hardly the problem. Most road designs are copied and replicated and you won't find many of them deficient or improper.

Government needs to create lots of awareness for road users. When people see sands settling on the road, they shouldn't wait on government to come and remove them. When the drainage is blocked and water settles on the road, they should take initiatives to free the drains. If we have been doing this, a lot of our roads will last longer.

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yes