Kingdom E.

Orji

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 9(1), 217-226, 2012

ISSN: 1813-2227

The Political Economy of Infrastructural Development in

Nigeria

Kingdom E. Orji
Department of History &Diplomatic Studies, Rivers State University of
Education, Rumuolumeni, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
Tel:+2348056669109; Email: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
The adequate provision of public utilities has become a critical determinant in the ‘failed
state’ question. In pre-colonial Nigeria, the indigenous communities in response to the
principle of ‘environmental determinism’ initiated projects to facilitate their participation
in variegated socio-economic activities such as farming, fishing, trading, hunting and
smiting, amongst others. With the advent of colonialism and the entrenchment of a colonial
economy, the idea of infrastructural development was predicated on the exploitation of the
natural resources of the ‘subject people’. It is this factor that succinctly provides the raison
d’etre for railways coursing from the coastlands to the hinterlands to the coal, cocoa,
groundnut and palm produce terminals. At political independence, there were great
expectations for a revolutionary approach that would have transformed the physiognomy of
the rural and urban centres but this dream remained unrealized. It is not a matter of policy
formulation but that of implementation. Bearing in mind that the availability of public
utilities and basic amenities form the pivot on which more than 80% of the socio-economic
life of a people revolve, this paper critically subjects the relevant agencies, such as the
Public Works Department (PWD) of the colonial era, the Director of Food, Roads and
Rural Infrastructure (DFRR), the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency (FERMA) and the
various ministries of Works and Transport at the Federal, State and Local Government
levels, to the crucibles of scrutiny. An x-ray of these organs abysmally reveals a culture of
ineptitude and non-performance traceable to endemic corruption and mismanagement of
public funds. It is this observation that justifies the adoption of the political economy
approach which posits that the politics of functional infrastructure is a public concern for
private benefit. To break this jinx, all the stakeholders in the public utilities industry, must
adopt an approach that takes accountability, value re-orientation and moral discipline cum
due process into consideration in the award and execution of contracts.

Key words: political economy, public utilities, corruption, accountability, due process.

INTRODUCTION
The issue of infrastructural development is very critical in assessing man’s ability to
harness the natural endowment of his environment to tackle various economic
challenges. The provision of basic amenities has become a yardstick for measuring
the success or failure of any given polity. It is interesting to note that when there is

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evidence to demonstrate the inability of a state to provide public utilities, it is deemed

to have failed or has become comatose. In pre-colonial Nigeria, the indigenous
economy of various ethnic nationalities evolved local technologies, though at
embryonic stage, to harness the potentials of their immediate environment. With the
advent of colonialism and the need for effective occupation, there arose the need for
the establishment of structures that would not only change the physiognomy of the
‘subject people’ but aid in tapping their economic resources. In essence, the state of
infrastructural development during the colonial period left much to be desired.
At independence in 1960, the Nigerian nation under the aegis of its home grown
executive leaders inherited a weak economy that was bereft of adequate public
utilities. There is every indication that the self-serving nature of political
administration in the neo-colonial times marred the commitment of its agents to focus
on the transformation of the economic landscape of the state. As will be shown later,
the bane of infrastructural development in Nigeria has always revolved around official
corruption and ineptitude. This observation is what informed the adoption of a
political economy approach.

Explication on the political economy concept

In this paper, there is the need for an explication on the meaning of political economy
and infrastructural development. The political economy model seeks to interpret
historical causations as a fall-out of material conditions. In other words, economic
realities form the pivot on which other social variables like politics, philosophy,
religion, culture, inter-group relations, amongst others revolve. Ekekwe’s (2009:15)
view on political economy approach is synonymous with historical materialism and
also sees it as a viable instrument for studying society. Similarly, Udeala (2009:92)
posits that the political economy approach stresses that in any given society, the
economic factors are preeminent and ultimately determine the essence and character
of other spheres of social existence such as culture, politics, and religion.
Unfortunately some scholars apply the political economy approach without a
proper grasp of the fundamental issues at stake. For example Ekpo & Omomeh
(2001:89) lay emphasis on the forces of politics before the dynamics of productive
forces. Idemudia (2008:5) in his theoretical framework does not address the critical
issues associated with the political economy approach. Influenced by the classical
view of Ricardo, he posits that … ‘by its modern context, political economy, can be
seen as an instrument of analysis of public choice. It is a study of social laws
governing production and distribution of national output in relation to social classes,
their inherent conflicts and the quest for public policies to resolve them’. In the
definition, it must be observed that the critical issue of historical materialism is not
adequately addressed.
The same sense of evasion is palpable in the work of Idada & Okosun (2005:155)
where there is no correlation between the title and the nitty-gritty of their discourse.
This submission is critical because any explication on the political economy school of
thought must endeavour to shed light on the role of material conditions vis-a-vis the
dynamics of society. In his own contribution, Essoh (2005:66) analyses the relevance
of Karl Marx’s of historical materialism to the study of society with special reference
to the mode of production and exchange. In an answer to the pivotal question ‘what is
political economy? Aina (1986:1) enthuses that the notion of political economy both
as a mode of analysis and the context within which socio-economic activities and
forces operate has gained widespread currency in the literate of contemporary
academic social science’. Jaja (2004:123) subscribes to a political economy approach

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which adopts the materialist conception of history with implications for scientific
socialism. In the political economy treatise, it is Ake’s (1981) polemic discourse that
revolutionized the understanding and application of the concept in relation to African
economy. His emphasis was on the primacy of material conditions in understanding
the dynamic character of society and the interplay between productive forces and
social relations of production in determining the economic system or mode of
production. The economic system is the fulcrum or substructure which determines
other variables of social existence either in politics, philosophy, religion, law, culture,
etc. collectively known as the superstructure. This explanation is important in
unraveling the somersaults infrastructural development has witnessed in Nigeria, not
only during the colonial era, but also in post-colonial periods.
By infrastructural development we mean the availability of public utilities and
basic amenities such as functional road networks, railways, factories and the
manufacturing sector that largely shape the economy of any society. These are
subsumed under the Basic Needs Approach (BNA), to development. Kalagbor
(2004:1) notes that people need food, shelter, water and medical services among
others, to survive. Generally, Yesufu (1996:34) observes that the main indices of
development are measured by a society’s capacity in providing food, housing and
clothing, transport, communication, energy and fuel, education, good health and
adequate medical service to its citizenry. Still on the Basic Human Needs model in
Africa, Kieh (2007:133) notes that they are defined in terms of adequate food, water,
health care, shelter and minimum education”. Steady (1995:89) paints a gloomy
picture of the retrogressive state of social condition in the African continent when he
submits that
Africa’s social problems are legion and well-known. Living conditions are declining
all over the continent and poverty, unemployment, famine and disease, illiteracy and
malnutrition are now endemic. Poor social services and inadequate infrastructure
exerbate the widespread social problems.

The State of Infrastructural Development in Pre-colonial Nigeria

Before the advent of colonialism, the indigenous economies of various ethnic

nationalities in Nigeria were able to harness the potentials of their natural
environment to tackle their survival needs. Their sustained involvement in result-
oriented economic activities such as farming, fishing, trading and the construction of
roads networks meant that their level of technology in infrastructural development
was not in doubt. An in-depth study of pre-colonial infrastructural development brings
to the fore a discourse on the dynamics of indigenous economies before 1900 and
there about. Foilola (1992:9) observes that the production system was characterized
by remarkable changes and innovations, regional diversities and complex
organizations resulting in the production of a very complex range of goods. The
sectors in the production system comprised agriculture, mining, manufacturing and
the provision of essential services’. Doigan and Gonn (1975:1-3) note that in pre-
colonial indigenous economies, most African polities settled in small villages with
crude technologies but this observation did not limit their capacity to explore and
exploit their natural endowments.
Falola (1992:15) beams a searchlight on the manufacturing sector of pre-colonial
African economy and stresses that much of the raw materials needed were, sourced
locally with little dependence on foreign products. This observation is true in the
fishing industry where canoe was locally produced by skilled men. Abdullahi
(2007:254) am ply demonstrates that the indigenous people of the Igbala, Kakanda,

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the Kyadyah and the Borgu were actively involved in canoe making in the confluence
territory of Nigeria is Fokoja area. The same observation could be made concerning
the Ijaw of the Niger Delta region who since their settlement in the said area as early
as the mid 19th century have demonstrated ingenuity in canoe-making to aid them in
fishing, their primary occupation.
The knowledge of iron manufacture marked a watershed in the infrastructural
development of most pre-colonial communities in Nigeria. In Hausa land, iron
technology provided the viable means of effectively exploiting the natural
endowments of their environment in agriculture and textile production (Abubakar
2007:216). One important aspect of pre-colonial infrastructure is that the technology
applied is the environment was a semblance of the cultural values of the indigenous
people (Obi-Okogbuo, 2009:8).
Within precolonial Nigeria the movement of people, goods and services in their
inter-group relevant was facilitated by a functional means of transportation. Ogunremi
(1992:22) identifies different forms of transportation in the said period viz (human)
portage (b) pack animals and (c) canoes with human head porterage as the commonest.
During the heydamp of the Trans-Saharan trade both herd porterage and pack animal
transportation were combined. Ogunremi (992:22) further observes that before the
desiccation of the Sahara about 2000BC, trade between the northern parts of West
Africa and North Africa was carried on foot. The natural provision various rivers in
Nigeria like the Niger, Quaboe, Cross River, Benue, Ogun, Imo, etc made canoe
construction and water transportation feasible “in spite of the limitation posed at times
when the rivers dry up. One striking feature of transportation in pre-colonial Nigeria
is that it was readily available and efficient and there is no doubt that the indigenous
people polled their resources to make it a possibility.

The Colonial Period

From the onset, it must be noted that colonialism created an economy that was
exploitative. Tamuno (1980:393) notes that the primary aim of the (British)
government in 1906 was economic- to use the better financial position of the
protectorate of Southern Nigeria to cover the costs of administration and development
in the financially weak Colony and Protectorate of Lagos, then saddled with the white
elephant of a railway in need of extension in 1901. Colonial rule opened the doors of
African indigenous economies to European modes of technology. Falola (2003:27)
observes that with the advent of colonialism
Many new European ideas and institution spread in different areas with varying
consequences, new economies emerged that promoted the cultivation of cash crops
for experts and the exploitation of minerals by foreign companies; physical challenges
included the growth of old and new cities the building of railways, roads, hospitals
and telecommunications and western education.
While x-raying the nature of the colonial economy in the British zones including
Nigeria, Kaniki (1990:173) identifies four underlying propelling factors namely (i) the
colonies existed as primary sources of raw materials for the nascent Industrial
Revolution that broke out in Britain in the 1760, (ii) the colonies were to function as
dumping grounds for the surplus products from British factories (iii) the colonies were
not expect financial support from the metropolis (iv) the colonies were to serve
British economic interest in all its ramifications. It I a truism that the British
embarked in infrastructural development in their Nigerian colony only in so far as it
could pave way for the exploitation of the indigenous economy. The hospitals were
built primarily to attend to the health challenges of expatriates while the railway

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network terminated where the cash crops like cocoa, coal, palm produce and ground-
nuts would be evacuated. Omosini (1980:146) analyses the policies that birthed
railway construction in Nigeria from 1877-1901 alluding still to the exigencies of the
Industrial Revolution and states that the Iddo-Ibadan line was commissioned in 1901.
The colonial administration also embarked on the construction of seaports in Nigeria.
In this regard Ogundana (1980:159) notes that the period of colonial rule in Nigeria
witnessed considerable investment of resources in the development o modern
transport infrastructure. During this period there was a rapid transformation of
transport facilities especially in railway, roads and seaports … and the years 1914 to
1954 can be referred to as the colonial phase in Nigeria’s seaport development. These
seaport dotted Nigeria’s coasts serving as the arrow head in the socio-economic
incursion into Nigeria’s hinterland. Ogundana (1980:161) further notes that as many
as fourteen customs ports located at Lagos, Koko, Sapele, Warri, Burutu, Forkados,
Akassa, Brass, Bonny, Degema, Port Harco0urt, Opopo, Calabar and Ikeng had been
established by 1914. Of all these, the Lagos and Port Harcourt’s were very important
because of their strategic locations and functions and were operated directly by
Government agencies, while the rest were managed by private interests and various
companies. These ports were hardly adequate for the volume of commercial
transactions expected. One of the major setbacks of seaport development was the
absence of a long-term spatial plan or land policy (Ogndana 1980:178) and this trend
was inherited in the post colonial period by Nigeria’s policy makers. Tamuno
(1982:249) writing on the development and structural changes in the colonial
economy, notes that Sir W. Egerton in 1904 created a separate Roads Department
under the Supervisor of Roads but at about 1910 both the public works and Roads
Department were merged. The P.W.D was the vanguard of most of infrastructural
development of the colonial administration.
Ake (1981:43) security observes that the colonial economy was characterized by
incoherence and submits that the colonizer could not exploit the colonies wealth at no
cost at all. In some cases, the extraction of the colony’s resources entailed some
investment in infrastructure development – roads, water resources, railways, electrical
power and administrative structures. In keeping with the contradiction exploitative
tendencies of capitalism. It must be mentioned that the infrastructure development the
colonial administration could offer was tangential and never led to self-reliance. This
is the kind of weak structure that the Nigerian political leaders inherited at the
independence. The technology that anchored these cosmetic developments were not
sophisticated enough to make the neo-colonial state of Nigeria less dependent on the
erstwhile colonizers.

Infrastructural Development at Post independence era

At political independence in 1960, it became very obvious that the agents of executive
administration inherited socio-economic cum political structure that needed an over
haul. In keeping with the challenges of a nascent independent nation, the political
leaders formulated policies at moving the country forward Yesufu (1996:59-60)
notes that the first National Economic Development Plan and Post- Independence
Development which spanned from 1960 -1970 culminated in the setting up of an
Economic Council with the Prime Minister, Sir Tafawa Balewa as Chairman, and
Regional Premiers and four Ministers from each Government of the Federation , with
the Economic Adviser to the Federal Government as an officer member. The avowed
objectives of the Council were according to Yesufu (1996:61)

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achievement and maintenance of highest possible rate of increase in the standard of

living and the creation of the necessary conditions to this end, including public
support and awareness of both the potential that exist and the sacrifices that will be
required.
The first development plan spanned 1962-1968 but was aborted due to the
unstable political is climate that climaxed in the Civil war. At the end of the Civil war,
the second National Development set out to mitigate the decimations of the gory Civil
war with the following objectives viz to establish (i) a united, strong and self-reliant
nation (ii) a great and dynamic economy (iii) a just and egalitarian society (iv) a land
of bright and full opportunities for all citizens and free a democratic society (Second
National Development Plan 1970-1974 cited in Yesusfu 1996:62). National
Development Plan if implemented could revolutionize the economy of any nation.
The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao- Tsetung of China tried
Communist regimes with huge successes; they chart the way for material progress.
Salawu, B, Mohammed, A.Y, Adekeye , D.S & Onimajesin, I.S (2006:107) trace the
history of National Development Plans in Nigeria to the 1946 when the Colonial
Government adopted the Ten-Year Plan of Development and Welfare Fund. The
Fourth Development Plan of 1981-1985 was punctured by the coup d’etats of 1983
and 1985 with adverse implications. The Babangida administration departed from the
traditional Development Plans to declare a rolling plan which was to cover the period
1989-2008.The General Sani Abacha junta abandoned the rolling plan of his
predecessor for what he tagged vision 2010.
Irrespective of all the human and material endowments Saliu, et al (2006:119)
posits that Nigeria’s Development indices point to a low rate of economic growth, low
capacity utilization in the industrial sector, poorly performing utilities/infrastructure
and the attendant increase in operating costs, among others….. With the jettisoning of
development plans, which today remain one of the greatest tragedies occasioned by
military rule, corruption was allowed to grow really unchecked. One major question
that was created to address the provision of public utilities was the Directorate of
Foods, Road and Rural Infrastructure (DFFRI) by General Ibrahim Babangida in 1986
with these cardinal objectives (i) to effectively promote a frame work for grass root
socio/mobilization (ii) to mount a wide programme of development monitoring and
performance evaluation and (iii) to undertake the construction of about 60,000km of
rural federal roads (Olisa, M.S.O. & Obiukwu, J.I. 1992:300).
DFFRI had the mandate to construct 90,000 kms but after one and half years of
existence was able to successfully accomplish 29,000 kms. DFFRI was bedeviled by
the characteristic and endemic Nigerian factor which is synonymous with corruption
in official circles. According to Yesufu (1996:249) ’one has to search carefully now to
locate the DFFRI roads – most of which have been over grown with tall grass weeds
or transformed into mud roads: glaring examples of the country’s penchant for
grandiose and unassailable principles and policies, unplanned and uncoordinated
strategies, fitful unsustained and half hearted implementation, wasteful and
mismanagement of scarce financial resources, that run into billions of naira and
millions of dollars’.
Other public institution established for the infrastructural development of
the country has not fared better. In their study Aloni & Elayelagha (2001:64)
discovered that the Niger Delta Basin Development Authority (NDBDA) has
failed in its task of providing potable water for rural dwellers in most
communities of Rivers State and by extension this apple to other of geo-political
zones of the country. Irrespective of billions of naira budgeted and released to the

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Niger Delta Development Authority, there is little or no evidence to justify the

staggering huge fiscal commitment in terms of physical infrastructure.
Accusation and counter-accusation of looting of public funds trail some officials
of the agency. Presently in Rivers State most communities like the Eneka,
Oroigwe, Elimgbu, etc, are requesting that NDDC should pull out of their
communities because most of their projects n the area of road construction are
abandoned.
The climax of the deplorable state of infrastructural development in Nigeria
is the fact that radio commentary on National Network News of 25th July, 2011
reveals that there are currently 11,000 abandoned road projects in Nigeria
running into 1.3 trillion naira. In fact, on motion that a state of emergency should
be declared on our national highways as most of the roads have turned to death
traps for commuters. It is now a common slogan that 1.3 million persons are lost
to road accidents every year as a result of bad road with the Okene-Lokoja and
Benin-Lagos road ranking high. Against the backdrop of the political economy
approach, it is obvious that corruption is the bone of Nigeria’s infrastructural
development project. Both government officials and private contractors work in
tandem to loot the public treasury at the expense of the masses. It is shocking to
note that Major Chukwuma Kaduna Nzeogwu that led the first coup d’etat in
Nigeria in his national broadcast remarked that:
… our enemies are the political profiteers, swindlers, the men in the high and low places
that seek bribes and demand ten percent, those that seek to keep the country divided
permanently so that they can remain in office as ministers and VIPs of waste, the tribalists,
the nepotists, those that make the country look big for nothing before international circles,
those that have corrupted our society and put the Nigerian political calendar back by their
words and deeds Obasanjo (1987:99).

On the consequence of corruption on national development, Ighodalo (2009:25)

observes that ‘political corruption has resulted in financial hemorrhage in government,
some of the country’s vast revenue earnings have been pilfered and squandered by
public officers most on conspicuous consumption and extravagant lifestyle. These are
monies that could have been used to provide the populace with the basic necessities of
life but are diverted into private purses and accounts thereby robbing the society of
much needed funds for development …… base infrastructural facilities such as roads
and electricity are at various stages of dilapidation thereby increasing the stress placed
on the ordinary citizenry.
The overall consequence of infrastructural decay is enormous. It is on record that
the origins of youth restiveness in the Niger Delta, apart from other factor could be
associated with the impact of the two million match of late General Sani Abacha in
1992 when helpless youths of the Region were rented in their thousands under the
umbrella of Youth Earnestly Ask For Abacha (YEARN) in Abuja, the capital city.
These youths who hail from the Niger Delta region ravaged by environmental
degradation were infuriated at the sight of the ‘Eldorado status of the city of Abuja
dotted by express highways and state of the art mansions. The list of consequences is
endless but the question is, what is the way forward?

The Way Forward

The greatest bottleneck to infrastructure development is corruption. In recent

times, the nation with its agencies ahs paid lip service to the eradication of this

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monster. It is disheartening to note that since 1988 the East –West Road has not
been completed. As at 1988, the contract was awarded at the cost of about
N133,000,000 but the Obansajo regime it was valued at 70 billion naira while the
Dr. Goodluck Jonathan’s administration it has been rescheduled for more
thanN200 billion yet the road is not completed. The Government and its agencies
must wake up to their responsibility of ensuring that all projects are completed in
schedule.
Contracts for road construction and the provision of basic amenities should
be awarded to contractors/companies with proven ability in the area of
accountability and delivery of services. Breach of contract execution should be
seen as a Capital Offence and punished accordingly. A situation where contracts
for road construction are awarded to political cronies who in turn sublet same is
condemnable. There should also be a maintenance culture. Roads and other
public utilities must be maintained, while we acknowledge the effort of the
Federal Government in setting up the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency
(FERMA) it is sad to note that this unit has not lived up to expectation as a result
of ineptitude.

CONCLUSION

The paper has demonstrated that the current state of infrastructural development
in Nigeria I deplorable. Adopting a historical approach, the paper examines the
state of infrastructural development in pre-colonial and post-colonial Nigeria. It
became obvious that in the pre-contact period, the indigenous polity sourced raw
materials from within as against the colonial and post-colonial era where such
materials were imported. Because the Colonial economy was created to serve the
capitalist interest of the metropolis, it was difficult to evolve a post- independent
self-reliant substitute. The colonial economy ensured that the conquered
territories served a dual purpose as a source of raw materials for the factors that
came into existence in Europe because of the Industrial Revolution and as a
markets or dumping grounds for finished products. In this regard, public
infrastructural development either as roads or railways was designed to exploit
the economy further. For example, railway were constructed to terminate at
points where cash crops like cocoa, palm produce, groundnut etc could b easily
evacuated.
In the post-colonial period, even under democratic dispensation, the state
has fared abysmally in its commitment to ameliorate the sufferings of the teeming
population of more than 150 million persons. It is the political economy approach
that explains unequivocally the self-serving nature and abysmal failure of
Government agencies like DFFRI, NDBDA, FERMA, and the like in providing
basic infrastructure for the overall welfare of the deluded Nigerian citizenry.
With more than 11,000 road projects abandoned and the Senate moving a motion
for the declaration of a state of emergency on the nation’s highways, it is time for
the stakeholders to re-evaluate earlier strategies with the hope of finding lasting
solutions as recommended in this paper.

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