Spanning over 923,000 square kilometres and home to more than 220 million people, Nigeria is a giant by size and numbers, a nation brimming with potential to shape Africa’s future and command a stronger voice on the global stage. Yet, beneath this promise lies a critical weakness: a crumbling infrastructure base that threatens to dim its ambitions, JOSEPHINE OGUNDEJI writes
The African Development Bank estimates that Nigeria needs around $100 bn annually to bridge its infrastructure gap, a staggering figure that underscores just how much ground the country must cover to unlock inclusive growth and long-term prosperity.
Despite the scale of the challenge, the infrastructure deficit is not just about numbers; it’s about people, productivity, and potential realisation. Poor roads cut off farmers from markets, power shortages cripple small businesses, and unreliable water systems endanger public health.
In rural communities, the absence of basic infrastructure reinforces poverty cycles, while in urban centres, congestion and decay dampen economic activity. The ripple effects are everywhere: inflated costs of goods, weakened investor confidence, and a generation growing up in environments that do not support innovation or opportunity.
For Nigeria to truly rise, bridging its infrastructure gap must become more than a policy goal; it must be a national priority anchored in urgency, accountability, and vision. While the previous administration under former President Muhammadu Buhari made significant strides, reviving the railway network, making massive investments in the power sector and completing the Second Niger Bridge, among other landmark achievements, the infrastructure deficits continued to widen, underscoring the urgent need for sustained efforts.
Over 50 per cent of Nigeria’s 195,000 km road network is in poor condition, with rural areas particularly underserved. Nigeria’s vast road network is meant to serve as the backbone of the country’s trade and mobility. However, its potential is undermined by neglect and deterioration, with over 70 per cent of these roads classified as being in poor condition, according to a 2023 report by the Federal Ministry of Works.
This widespread decay imposes heavy costs on the economy: transportation becomes more expensive, goods take longer to reach their destinations, and access to markets, particularly for rural farmers and small-scale traders, is severely constrained. What should be a tool for national integration and economic efficiency has instead become a barrier to inclusive growth.
An overview of the 2024 Infrastructure Industry Report published by Agusto&Co revealed that with a rapidly expanding and urbanising population, Nigeria faces a significant infrastructure deficit, projected to reach $878bn by 2040. However, the country’s current infrastructure stock constitutes only 30 per cent of GDP, far below the World Bank’s benchmark of 70 per cent.
The country also ranks behind 23 other African countries on the African Development Bank’s Africa Infrastructure Development Index.
“Despite reforms such as the National Integrated Infrastructure Master Plan and the Highway Development Management Initiative, critical deficits remain, with only 30 per cent of the country’s estimated 200,000 road networks paved. The railway network, plagued by vandalism and funding gaps, is still undeveloped, as it constituted less than one per cent of the transportation industry’s contribution to the country’s Gross Domestic Product in 2023,” the report stated.
In the IMD World Competitiveness Ranking 2024, an annual report published by the International Institute for Management Development, Nigeria ranks 64th out of 67 countries, with Singapore emerging as the most competitive economy. In the report, Nigeria scores 23.71 out of 100 in infrastructure. Key weaknesses identified include unstable electricity supply, ageing road networks and limited rail connectivity, limited broadband penetration affecting information and communication technology adoption, and challenges in education and healthcare infrastructure.
The ranking highlights Nigeria’s significant challenges in areas such as economic performance, infrastructure development, and business efficiency. Specifically, Nigeria holds the 66th spot in economic performance and infrastructure, 54th in government efficiency, and 58th in business efficiency.
Additionally, Nigeria ranks last in pricing, health and environment, and education, trailing all other countries in the index, including Ghana.
60% of national infrastructures neglected
The treasurer of the Nigerian Society of Engineers, Victoria Island Branch, Babatunji Adegoke, said 60 per cent of the country’s infrastructures were neglected. He noted this at the 10th Late Emeritus Professor M.O. Ogedengbe Annual Lecture and the Civil Engineering Students Conference of Obafemi Awolowo University.
He said, “60 per cent of the country’s infrastructures, such as roads, seaports, airports, and public water systems, are ageing and have either been neglected or poorly maintained, making them unable to serve their intended purposes effectively.” The way forward is for the government to engage qualified professionals to appraise these dilapidated assets in order to determine their current state of functionality and remaining economic life. This assessment will provide a sound basis for making informed decisions on whether to rehabilitate existing facilities or invest in constructing new ones.
“Consider the Ibadan-Ile Ife Expressway, a road once functional but now deteriorated. Preventive maintenance would have been cheaper than the cost of total failure. In 2025 alone, Lagos recorded multiple building collapses, avoidable tragedies rooted in professional negligence and policy lapses. Even more dangerous is the decay of values, the loss of civil behaviour in a civil profession. As engineers, we must advocate not only for roads and structures but also for ethical foundations.”
Corroborating the above, a builder, Awolusi Femi, said, every infrastructure has its maintenance circles based on the types of materials used, and lack of maintenance by any members of the infrastructure that needed to be maintained will make the infrastructure ineffective.
He said, “Every infrastructure has its maintenance circles based on the types of materials used, and lack of maintenance of any members of the infrastructure that needs to be maintained will make the infrastructure ineffective. In a public water system, we have a treatment station, distribution pipes, monitoring and control units, and storage. For example, in storage there are structural members like steel or iron that may have rusted that need replacement, but due to lack of maintenance, it may cause total collapse of the system or malfunction of the controlling units. Most of the infrastructure is not working or serving its purpose because of lack of maintenance.
“Every infrastructure required a budget for circle maintenance, either yearly or monthly, based on recommendations from the designers or the builders.
“Every infrastructure has a maintenance circle document, but commonly clients, including governments, organisations and individuals, aren’t bothered about the documents. Every material has its lifespan, so the designers or the builder can state the time for maintenance or replacement of some parts of the infrastructure in their maintenance document.”
Infrastructure push intensifies
Tinubu, determined to change the narrative, launched massive infrastructural projects across the country and unveiled a comprehensive plan to upgrade its infrastructure. This includes investments in roads, railways, airports, and energy sectors. In his first year, he approved approximately N6tn for infrastructure upgrades spanning the geopolitical zones.
Apart from ramping up on inherited projects, he also initiated massive ones, including the 1,000km Sokoto-Illela-Badagry Superhighway, which is meant to join the 700km Lagos-Calabar Highway, which he flagged off on Sunday, May 26, 2024. Speaking at the flag-off of the 700 km Lagos-Calabar Highway, which takes a larger share of the 853 km coastline of the country, Tinubu highlighted the projects’ benefits, including boosting 30 million businesses, and assured Nigerians that the projects going on simultaneously from the Lagos, Akwa Ibom and Cross River ends would never be abandoned. On May 31, the President inaugurated the 30 km completed full concrete pavement section from the Lagos end.
Reeling out some of the projects and the achievements in two years, the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, said the country had been witnessing massive road construction in all the geopolitical zones. Those already completed in two years are 38.7 km of the Yakasia-Badume-Damargu-Marken Zalli Road in Kano, 17.80 km of dualisation and construction of the Kano-Kwanar-Hadejia Road in Kano/Jigawa states, 29 km of Sections I and II of the dualisation of the Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa/Bokani Junction Road, and 10.24 km of the Lokoja-Benin Road dualisation.
Others are the Zaria-Funtua-Gusau-Sokoto Road in Kaduna, Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto states (16.32 km); the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway (36 km); the Enugu-Port Harcourt Expressway (81.2 km); the Lagos-Badagry Expressway (22.2 km); the Kano-Maiduguri Expressway (79.5 km); and the Kaduna-Pambeguwa-Jos Road in Kaduna/Plateau states (15.96 km), among others. On railway development, in December 2024, the Tinubu administration completed and handed over the Port Harcourt–Aba section of the Eastern narrow-gauge railway, a part of the larger $3bn project aimed at reconstructing and expanding the existing narrow-gauge railway connecting Port Harcourt to Maiduguri, passing through key cities like Umuahia, Owerri, Awka, Enugu, and Abakaliki.
The president reaffirmed his commitment to completing the high-speed rail line linking Ibadan to Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano. During a visit to China in August 2024, he engaged with the China Railway Construction Corporation, stressing the importance of the project for national and regional connectivity. To fast-track funding for new rail projects, the 2025 budget makes provision of N400bn for light rail projects in Lagos, Ogun, Kaduna, and Kano states, with N150bn allocated for the construction of a railway line in Kano and N44.4bn for the completion of the Abuja-Kaduna and Lagos-Ibadan railway projects, among others. The Federal Government also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with MPH Rail Development (UK) Ltd for the construction of the Port Harcourt–Enugu–Calabar–Abuja standard gauge railway line under a Public-Private Partnership framework. There is also the Kano–Kano-Katsina-Maradi railway project, for which the country secured $1.3bn in funding and which is currently ongoing.
The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has also ramped up infrastructural development of Abuja. Speaking after an inspection of some of the projects slated for inauguration on Thursday, May 29, 2025, he said the renewed infrastructure drive was unprecedented. “Tinubu’s achievements in FCT are unprecedented, and in the next two years, you’ll see what is going to happen in this country,” he said.
The FCT has witnessed infrastructural revival since Tinubu came on board, with the Abuja metro train revived and the International Conference Centre remodelled, alongside several road constructions completed and ongoing. The Apo to Wassa Junction Road (the left-wing service lane of the Outer Southern Expressway), the N20 Interchange to connect Wole Soyinka Way with the Murtala Mohammed Expressway, popularly known as Kubwa Expressway, access road from the Obafemi Awolowo Way to the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal in Dakibiyu District, among others, have been completed and are ready for inauguration. The president is also ramping up infrastructure in the health sector.
To achieve this, he launched the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority Healthcare Expansion Programme, leading to the establishment of 10 oncology and diagnostic centres across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones. This initiative builds upon previous NSIA projects, such as the NSIA-LUTH Cancer Centre and diagnostic centres in Kano and Umuahia.
The administration also embarked on the upgrade of health infrastructure in 16 teaching hospitals, with the University College Hospital, Ibadan; Lagos University Teaching Hospital; and Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital among the beneficiaries. Sixteen infrastructure projects were inaugurated at the Federal Neuropsychiatric Hospital, Kware, in Sokoto State, and new facilities at the National Ear Care Centre in Kaduna were inaugurated for use, among others.
The President also launched the N100bn Credit Guarantee Company, fibre-to-hostel solar projects to provide 24-hour internet to universities, the NextGen innovation challenge for youths across the 774 local government areas, and partner investors to boost gas infrastructure and expand Compressed Natural Gas use nationwide, alongside the rollout of CNG buses and tricycles across cities and universities.
The Federal Government committed $2bn to expand broadband infrastructure, targeting the deployment of 90,000 kilometres of fibre optic cables nationwide. This initiative is to enhance internet connectivity, particularly in underserved areas, and is supported by a $500m commitment from the World Bank. The government also launched Project 774 LG Connectivity to provide reliable internet access to all 774 LG secretariats by 2027, leveraging existing infrastructure from NIGCOMSAT and Galaxy Backbone.
Also, the Federal Executive Council approved the Nigeria Universal Communication Access Project to connect over 21 million people in 4,834 underserved communities, among others. Nigeria’s installed power generation capacity is currently around 14,000 MW, with a transmission capacity of 8,500 MW. While the installed capacity has increased, the peak generation on the grid is around 4,800 MW, indicating that the full potential of the installed capacity is not being utilised.
The government is also set to deliver 100,000 housing units across the country under the Renewed Hope Cities and Estates programme. The focus is to address housing deficits and promote affordable living among Nigerians.
Contract bias threatening infrastructure goals
The former Registrar of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, Dr Felix Atume, disclosed this at the Nigerian Academy of Engineering 2025 yearly lecture entitled, ‘Bridging the infrastructure gap in Nigeria: the role of the private sector’, in Lagos.
He said, “Corruption significantly affects the integrity of PPP processes. The problems are the non-transparent procurement, favouritism in awarding contracts, and manipulation of concession agreements. The impact is that it discourages reputable international investors and undermines value-for-money outcomes.”
Relating this to the infrastructural deficit in the country, Atume noted that despite the recognised potential of public-private partnerships to bridge Nigeria’s vast infrastructure deficit, particularly in the road sector, several critical barriers have undermined their effectiveness.
He said, “A review of Nigeria’s experience shows the following major challenges: Nigeria’s legal environment for PPP remains underdeveloped and fragmented. Although the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission Act of 2005 provides a foundation, it is not sufficiently robust to support complex and long-term PPP arrangements.
“There is a lack of harmonised and comprehensive PPP legislation at federal, state, and local government levels. Uncertainties in laws governing concessions, land rights, and dispute resolution make enforcement difficult. The legal uncertainty discourages private investors who require predictable and enforceable frameworks to safeguard their investments.
“The Nigerian PPP institutional architecture suffers from weak coordination and excessive bureaucracy, and the problems are overlapping responsibilities among government agencies, protracted approval processes, and inadequate technical expertise to design, evaluate, and manage PPP contract impact. These factors lead to significant delays, increased transaction costs, and investors disinterest.
“In addition, frequent political changes and weak governance structures result in disruptions of existing PPP contracts, creating a high-risk environment for private investors. Premature termination of concession agreements and politicisation of project decisions undermine investor confidence. Investors face heightened political risks, which often result in demands for higher returns to compensate for uncertainty.”
