Kogi State Governor Usman Ododo has pledged that the years-long gridlock plaguing the Lokoja-Abuja highway, which reached crisis levels in April with a catastrophic traffic standstill at the Nataco-Banda axis, will be resolved before the end of the year after the federal government elevated the corridor to priority status and unbundled the project contract from a single construction firm to six separate companies operating on different sections simultaneously.
The governor’s Special Adviser on Federal Projects Implementation, Emmanuel Obasi, conveying the assurance to leaders of the Kogi State Chamber of Commerce, said the president’s direct intervention following the governor’s advocacy had changed the implementation structure from what had historically been a single-contractor arrangement to a model designed to accelerate progress by distributing the work across multiple firms with greater combined capacity.
He said the human and economic cost of the gridlock, particularly during festive periods, had been documented and brought to the highest level of government attention, and that with the restructured contracting arrangement in place the most critical bad sections of the road would be made motorable before the end of 2026. He described the Lokoja-Abuja corridor as too strategically important to the national economy to remain in its current condition given that it was the primary link between the North and South for commerce, agriculture, and human movement.
KOCCIMA President Akerejola Damiloye welcomed the assurance and pressed for complementary action to revitalize the Ajaokuta Steel Company, submitting a position paper describing the steel plant as the key to making Nigeria a technological and industrial hub capable of generating the mass employment the country required.
