Ajayi: Beyond Lekki toll road concesioning

AS a scholar in whose discipline fall matters of transportation, highway systems and the lot, I have watched with considerable awe, the needless controversy going on regarding the Lekki Toll Road. There has also been considerable discussion, indeed, arguments, as to the reasonableness, or no, of the imperative of Public Private Partnership (PPP) as a development model for upgrading infrastructure in Nigeria. All these in a country that aspires to rank within the most developed 20 economies in a mere 10 years down the line!
In 2006, under a 30-year Concession agreement to upgrade, expand and maintain approximately 50km of the Lekki-Epe (Phase 1) and to construct approximately 20km of the coastal road (Phase 2 on the Lekki peninsula, then Lagos State governor Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu executed a PPP agreement with a private company, the Lekki Concession Company. It is gratifying to note that his successor, Babatunde Raji Fashola, has not looked back since in spite of the grating innuendos and rough tackles which one can conjecture are mostly politically driven.