*Roads to be phased with priority given to those carrying heaviest traffic *North

-South Arterial: Ilorin-Jebba-Mokwa road, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, others on priority list *Tolls may return

The federal government is to devote attention to the completion of 206 roads across the country for which contracts have already been awarded, Power, Works and Housing Minister Babatunde Fashola said yesterday.

Of this number, priority will be accorded roads with heaviest traffic and these include the Ilorin/Jebba/Mokwa roads and the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway.

"The strategy I recommend is that let's take the roads that carry the heaviest traffic and phase them; take Phase 1 this year finish them or push them to near completion. Then next year Phase 2, third year, Phase 3 and in each phase let us ensure that at least every geopolitical zone in the country gets something", he said on Channels Television.

He described the Ilorin - Jebba Road as a lifeline for agricultural products and lots of other supplies from the North to the South, and spoke on his experience on the road recently.

"I visited all the six states, inspecting power formations, road formations and civil works projects that we were doing there and I saw our people, literally trying to salvage their vegetable products that had perished because they were stuck there for four days", he said.

"There was endless queue of trucks carrying all sorts of things, construction materials, petrol, pipes and so on which got stuck there for days. The only way I could pass was through a bush path, through an elevated detour."

He continued, "None of the articulated trucks could pass that; those who did just tipped over and people slept there for days", adding that although the contract for the 98 kilometre road was awarded, but the contractor wasn't paid for a year and half and when he was paid the fifteen per cent mobilization fee, they only paid him half of the fifteen per cent." He said he had to appeal to the contractor to "please go back to site."

He dismissed suggestions that government is unduly complaining about the last administration.

"But you can't assess me without the context of where we were coming from," he said, explaining that the contract sum for the 98 kilometre road was N14 billion which the past administration could not pay.

"If we had paid the contractor, he would have finished that road. For the whole of the country the last administration budgeted only N18 billion for roads when one road alone costs about N14 billion.

"So I start this year with those roads that carry the heaviest number of vehicles, that carry other critical services that other departments rely on to survive; Agriculture, for example needs that road", he said.

On the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Fashola said: "Injunctions have been obtained to stop the arrangement put in place by the last administration to finance the road through the private sector and the injunction was granted by a court in Nigeria saying that nobody should raise money to finance the development of the road.

"Thankfully, there is no injunction on government building its road yet; I hope there will be none. So government is hoping to finance the road. It is part of what we put in the budget for this year."

Hinting that government would toll some of the roads it intends to build or reconstruct, Fashola declared, "We should stop being pretentious that roads can be had for absolutely free everywhere. There will be toll roads if we want to get out of this situation. There will be alternative roads as well so that people can choose."