The Federal Government has terminated the 43‑kilometre Port Harcourt–Aba road contract awarded to China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), the Minister of Works, David Umahi, announced after inspecting the project on Sunday.
Umahi said the decision was taken because the contractor repeatedly failed to rectify construction defects despite numerous warnings, leaving large sections of the road at risk of collapse even after substantial public funds had been spent.
“Today is the 19th of October, the Controller reported to me that the Aba‑bound of Port Harcourt‑Aba Road being constructed by CCECC is at the verge of total collapse,” the minister said.
He described the project as an inherited one and said his team had been trying to complete one carriageway while monitoring CCECC’s work on the other.
Umahi criticised the firm’s construction methods, saying binder layers had been laid for long stretches without the protective wearing course or properly finished shoulders.
“Their method of construction has been a very serious source of concern, where you will do binder for over a stretch of 30 kilometres and you are not putting wearing. We have issued warnings to CCECC more than 20 times,” he said.
The minister said he had visited the site multiple times.
“I have been here more than seven times. If you get to Port Harcourt end, which they did about two years or thereabouts, the entire road has almost totally failed,” Umahi added, urging the press to document the project’s failure after taxpayers’ money had been expended.
Umahi said the Ministry of Works will seek qualified indigenous contractors to take over and complete the Port Harcourt‑bound section immediately.
He warned, however, that CCECC must still remove the existing binder, work the company had been paid for, and properly reinstate the road where necessary.
“The site handled by CCECC should issue them a 14‑day notice of termination of this job,” the minister declared, adding that if CCECC failed to mill out and replace the binder at its own cost within that period, the government would move to close down all its projects in Nigeria. “If they don’t do that, I will shut down all their projects in Nigeria. I will do that.”
Umahi said he would publish the warnings previously issued to CCECC so the public could see the correspondence, stressing that persistent noncompliance could have legal consequences for personnel on the project.
“When we manage to pay, and then they cannot do the right construction, then they have to pay for it. If from tomorrow they don’t get to start amending this, I will come back and arrest the Chinese people who are on this project because they have taken the money, and they have to maintain these places,” he said.
He expressed disappointment that a contractor handling more than 25 government jobs would deliver such poor workmanship and reiterated that the termination decision had been taken to protect public safety.
“Now it is developing, and very soon vehicles will start falling, and then people will start dying, and nobody will call them. So if they don’t do it, I will get them arrested,” Umahi warned.
