The Tyranny Of The Urgent
When Political Importance Replaces People-Centred Importance In Nigeria
By
Nze David N. Ugwu
There is a peculiar tragedy in the way Nigeria governs itself. It is not that the country lacks ideas, resources, policies or development plans. It is that too often, the things that are politically urgent receive greater attention than the things that are economically necessary and socially important.
This is the tyranny of the urgent.
It is the condition in which governments become preoccupied with what must be announced today, commissioned tomorrow, photographed next week and displayed as evidence of performance, while the less glamorous but more consequential work of maintaining institutions, infrastructure and public services is postponed.
Nigeria’s political system has perfected the art of confusing visibility with value.
A newly constructed highway is visible. Road maintenance is not.
A new flyover can be commissioned with television cameras, dignitaries and speeches. Filling potholes, repairing drainage systems and resurfacing deteriorating roads rarely produces the same political theatre.
A new building can carry a plaque bearing the name of a political office-holder. Preventing an existing public building from collapsing cannot.
The result is a development philosophy in which governments frequently prefer to build new things rather than preserve what already exists.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway provides a useful case study—not necessarily because the project is inherently unnecessary, but because it raises a much larger question about Nigeria’s priorities. The Federal Government describes the highway as a strategic economic corridor, designed to connect coastal states, stimulate commerce, improve transportation and create new economic opportunities. The project is officially planned as a major inter-state corridor of roughly 750 kilometres, and the administration regards it as one of its flagship infrastructure projects.
Those are legitimate objectives.
But the important question is not simply whether the Coastal Highway is a good project.
The deeper question is:
Is Nigeria spending and sequencing its scarce resources according to the hierarchy of the nation’s greatest needs?
That is where the tyranny of the urgent becomes dangerous.
The Politics of What Can Be Seen
Politics thrives on visibility.
Politicians operate within electoral cycles. They want projects that citizens can see, touch and associate with their administration. They want roads, bridges, airports, buildings and monuments that can be photographed and commissioned.
There is nothing inherently wrong with this.
Governments should build infrastructure.
The problem begins when political visibility becomes the primary criterion for determining public investment.
A road connecting major economic centres may be desperately needed, but so may the rehabilitation of hundreds of kilometres of existing roads that have become death traps.
Yet the new road has greater political attractiveness.
Why?
Because construction creates a narrative.
There is a beginning.
There is a contractor.
There is machinery.
There are workers.
There are ceremonies.
There is a ribbon to cut.
Maintenance is different.
Maintenance is continuous, invisible and politically unrewarding.
No politician wants to announce:
“Today, we have successfully prevented a road from deteriorating.”
Yet that may be one of the most economically valuable things government can do.
This is the paradox of infrastructure governance in Nigeria: we celebrate the creation of assets while neglecting the preservation of assets.
The Federal Roads Maintenance Agency itself acknowledges the imbalance. Its official FAQ states that the Federal Government spends more on new roads and bridges than on maintaining existing federal roads. FERMA also estimates Nigeria’s federal road network at about 36,000 kilometres.
That should worry every Nigerian.
Because a nation that repeatedly builds new infrastructure while allowing existing infrastructure to deteriorate is not necessarily developing.
It may simply be replacing yesterday’s failures with tomorrow’s liabilities.
The Coastal Highway Question
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is a useful illustration of this dilemma.
The Federal Government argues that the project will open new markets, improve connectivity, stimulate economic activity and create opportunities along the coastal corridor. The first phase was designed as a dual-carriage concrete highway, while the broader project is expected to connect several coastal states.
There is an economic argument for such infrastructure.
Indeed, Nigeria cannot remain trapped in the infrastructure of the past. New economic corridors can unlock land, tourism, logistics, manufacturing, agriculture and investment.
A serious development strategy must therefore include new infrastructure.
But development is not simply about asking:
“What new thing can we build?”
It must also ask:
“What existing thing must we preserve?”
This is the question Nigeria frequently avoids.
The country has thousands of kilometres of roads connecting communities, farms, markets, schools, hospitals, ports and industrial centres. When those roads deteriorate, the consequences are immediate.
Farmers lose access to markets.
Transporters spend more on fuel and vehicle repairs.
Food prices increase.
Businesses lose productive hours.
Emergency services become slower.
Vehicles depreciate faster.
Accidents increase.
Communities become isolated.
Eventually, government is forced to spend substantially more to rehabilitate infrastructure that could have been preserved through relatively inexpensive preventive maintenance.
That is not development economics.
That is the economics of neglect.
Maintenance Is Not a Secondary Activity
There is a dangerous misconception in Nigeria that maintenance is somehow inferior to construction.
It is not.
In a well-managed economy, maintenance is a central component of development.
A country that builds a road and fails to maintain it has not completed the project.
It has merely completed the first stage of the project’s life.
The real test begins after commissioning.
How long will the road last?
How regularly will drainage be cleared?
How quickly will potholes be repaired?
How will axle-load violations be controlled?
How will flooding be prevented?
How will the pavement be inspected?
Who will pay for routine maintenance?
What happens when the first signs of deterioration appear?
These are not technical questions for engineers alone.
They are questions of public policy and economic governance.
FERMA’s own 2025 budget defence revealed the scale of the problem. The Agency said it required far greater resources to maintain the nation’s road network, while its proposed 2025 budget was N64.888 billion. The supervising minister noted that the annual requirement for maintaining the extensive federal road network was estimated at more than N700 billion.
That gap tells a story.
Nigeria is attempting to manage a vast infrastructure network with resources that are inadequate even for basic preservation.
And yet the political appetite for new projects remains strong.
This is where the tyranny of the urgent becomes a national development problem.
The Politically Important Versus the People-Important
The politically important is not always the economically important.
A project can be politically important because it benefits a strategic constituency.
It can be politically important because it is associated with the legacy of a particular administration.
It can be politically important because it generates favorable headlines.
It can be politically important because contractors, political actors and other interests are invested in it.
But none of these automatically makes it the most important investment for the Nigerian people.
The people-important question is different:
What intervention will improve the lives of the greatest number of Nigerians at the lowest sustainable cost?
That question changes everything.
It forces government to think about opportunity cost.
Every naira spent on one project is a naira that cannot be spent somewhere else.
Therefore, every major public project should be evaluated not merely by its engineering merit but by the alternatives sacrificed to finance it.
If government spends billions on a new road, what roads will not be maintained?
If government builds a new airport, what existing airports will remain under-equipped?
If government constructs another government complex, what schools will remain without basic facilities?
If government announces another monumental project, what hospitals will continue to lack essential equipment?
This is the language of opportunity cost.
Unfortunately, political discourse in Nigeria rarely speaks this language.
Politicians announce expenditure.
They rarely announce what society is giving up to finance that expenditure.
The Psychology of the Mega-Project
There is also a psychological dimension to the attraction of mega-projects.
Large projects create a sense of transformation.
They look like transformation.
They sound like transformation.
They produce impressive statistics.
“One hundred kilometres.”
“Six lanes.”
“Nine states.”
“Thousands of jobs.”
“Billions of naira.”
These numbers create an image of progress.
But development is not measured by the size of a project.
It is measured by the improvement in people’s lives.
A 750-kilometre highway can be economically transformative.
But so can thousands of kilometres of properly maintained ordinary roads.
A new expressway may reduce travel time.
But repairing the road linking a rural farming community to its nearest market may increase farmers’ income.
A new bridge may connect two major cities.
But repairing a neglected bridge connecting a community to its hospital may save lives.
The challenge, therefore, is not to reject mega-projects.
It is to put them in the proper hierarchy of national priorities.
When Government Becomes a Project Machine
One of the dangers of the tyranny of the urgent is that government gradually becomes a project machine rather than a service institution.
The performance of government begins to be measured by the number of projects initiated.
New projects become evidence of activity.
But activity is not necessarily achievement.
A government can be extremely busy and still be ineffective.
It can commission roads while transport costs rise.
It can build infrastructure while poverty deepens.
It can launch programs while public services deteriorate.
It can announce reforms while institutions remain weak.
The distinction is crucial:
Government activity is not the same thing as public value.
value is created when government spending produces measurable improvements in citizens’ welfare, productivity, security, mobility and opportunity.
This requires a different mindset.
Instead of asking, “What project can we announce?” policymakers should ask:
“What problem can we solve?”
Instead of asking, “What can we commission?” they should ask:
“What can we sustain?”
Instead of asking, “What will make the biggest headline?” they should ask:
“What will make the biggest difference?”
That is the beginning of responsible governance.
The Cost of Delayed Maintenance
Deferred maintenance is one of the most expensive forms of public expenditure.
Consider a simple road.
A small crack appears.
A pothole begins.
Water enters.
The pavement weakens.
Traffic accelerates the deterioration.
The pothole becomes a depression.
The depression becomes a dangerous section.
Eventually, the entire road fails.
What could have been repaired cheaply now requires reconstruction.
This is exactly how infrastructure liabilities accumulate.
The same logic applies to bridges, water systems, schools, hospitals, public buildings and power infrastructure.
Maintenance is therefore not expenditure without returns.
It is investment protection.
When government spends billions constructing a road, maintenance protects that investment.
Failure to maintain it is equivalent to allowing billions of naira in public assets to depreciate prematurely.
Nigeria cannot afford such waste.
The Tyranny of the Political Calendar
Perhaps the greatest enemy of maintenance is the political calendar.
Governments think in terms of elections.
Maintenance requires long-term thinking.
A politician may hesitate to spend heavily on routine maintenance because the benefits will be taken for granted.
The politician who fixes a road before it collapses may receive little praise.
The politician who reconstructs the same road after it has completely failed may receive considerable praise.
This creates a perverse incentive.
Failure becomes politically more rewarding than prevention.
That is a dangerous incentive structure.
It encourages governments to wait until problems become crises.
Then the government appears heroic for solving the crisis it could have prevented.
Nigeria must break this cycle.
A mature governance system should reward prevention.
A governor who maintains roads properly should be considered more successful than one who allows them to collapse and then reconstructs them.
A minister who prevents infrastructure failure should receive as much political recognition as one who commissions new infrastructure.
A government that keeps existing public assets functional should be regarded as delivering development.
This is Not an Argument Against the Coastal Highway
It is important to make this distinction.
Criticizing the tyranny of the urgent is not necessarily an argument against the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
The highway may indeed become an important economic corridor.
The Federal Government says the project is intended to promote regional integration, reduce transportation costs, support tourism, create jobs and stimulate investment. The project has also attracted structured financing, including a reported $747 million syndicated loan for Phase 1, Section 1.
These are legitimate objectives.
The issue is sequencing and balance.
Nigeria can build the Coastal Highway and maintain existing roads.
Nigeria can construct new infrastructure and protect old infrastructure.
Nigeria can pursue ambitious projects while funding preventive maintenance.
The problem arises when the pursuit of political monuments crowds out the mundane responsibilities that keep the economy functioning.
In fact, a truly strategic infrastructure policy should make the two complementary.
Every new road should come with a maintenance strategy.
Every major infrastructure project should have a lifecycle-cost assessment.
Every major project should identify its recurrent maintenance implications.
Every public asset should have a maintenance budget.
And every government should publish measurable infrastructure-performance indicators.
The People’s Economy is not a Photo Opportunity
There is another dimension to this debate.
The Nigerian economy is carried every day by ordinary people.
The trader who travels before dawn.
The farmer who transports produce.
The artisan moving equipment.
The civil servant commuting to work.
The student travelling to school.
The patient travelling to a hospital.
The truck driver carrying goods.
The small manufacturer moving raw materials.
These people do not experience government through commissioning ceremonies.
They experience government through the quality of the road they travel every day.
They experience it through the reliability of electricity.
Through the availability of water.
Through the cost of transportation.
Through security.
Through healthcare.
Through the efficiency of public institutions.
That is where government becomes real.
A government can therefore have an impressive project portfolio and still fail the ordinary citizen.
The ultimate test of governance is not the number of projects announced.
It is the quality of everyday life.
From Project Politics to Problem-Solving Politics
Nigeria needs to move from project politics to problem-solving politics.
Project politics asks:
“What can we build?”
Problem-solving politics asks:
“What is preventing Nigerians from living productive lives?”
Project politics counts kilometres.
Problem-solving politics counts reduced travel time.
Project politics counts buildings.
Problem-solving politics counts improved service delivery.
Project politics celebrates expenditure.
Problem-solving politics measures outcomes.
This is the transformation Nigeria desperately needs.
It requires a new culture of public-sector decision-making based on evidence, priorities and measurable results.
Before approving a major project, government should ask at least five questions:
First: What problem does this project solve?
Second: How many Nigerians will benefit directly and indirectly?
Third: What is the opportunity cost?
Fourth: What existing assets are being neglected while this project is funded?
Fifth: Can government afford to maintain the project throughout its useful life?
These questions should become part of Nigeria’s public investment culture.
A New National Priority: Preserve, Repair, Then Expand
Nigeria needs a simple infrastructure philosophy:
Preserve. Repair. Upgrade. Then Expand.
Preserve what works.
Repair what is deteriorating.
Upgrade what is inadequate.
Then build what is genuinely necessary.
This does not mean freezing development.
It means ensuring that development is sustainable.
There is little wisdom in constructing a new highway while the road feeding into it becomes impassable.
There is little logic in building a new economic corridor while existing industrial roads are deteriorating.
There is little value in creating new infrastructure without ensuring that the surrounding infrastructure can support it.
Development must therefore be understood as a system, not a collection of isolated projects.
The Political Courage to Do the Unpopular
Ultimately, the battle against the tyranny of the urgent requires political courage.
It requires politicians to do things that may not generate immediate applause.
Maintenance is one of them.
Institution-building is another.
Data collection is another.
Preventive healthcare is another.
Education reform is another.
Public-sector reform is another.
These activities rarely produce spectacular photographs.
But they build nations.
The most successful countries did not become successful simply by constructing impressive projects.
They developed systems capable of maintaining what they built.
They created institutions that outlived individual politicians.
They established standards.
They planned.
They measured.
They maintained.
They corrected.
They learned.
And they continued.
Nigeria must learn this lesson.
Conclusion: Governance is about Priorities
The tyranny of the urgent is ultimately a crisis of priorities.
Nigeria does not necessarily lack money, projects or ideas.
It lacks sufficient discipline in deciding what should come first.
The challenge before the Tinubu administration—and indeed every Nigerian government—is to distinguish between what is politically attractive and what is economically transformative.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway may become a valuable national asset. Other major infrastructure projects may also be necessary. But their value will ultimately depend not only on whether they are completed, but on whether Nigeria develops the institutional discipline to maintain them and the existing infrastructure upon which millions of Nigerians already depend.
The Federal Government has itself acknowledged the maintenance challenge. In 2026, FERMA proposed about ₦230 billion for road maintenance, while continuing to identify inadequate funding as a major constraint. That reality should provoke a fundamental policy conversation:
how much should Nigeria spend on creating new assets, and how much must it spend to protect the assets it already owns?
The answer cannot be determined by political excitement.
It must be determined by economics.
It must be determined by citizens’ needs.
It must be determined by evidence.
And above all, it must be determined by the simple principle that government exists not to impress citizens with projects, but to improve their lives.
Nigeria must therefore escape the tyranny of the urgent.
We must stop allowing tomorrow’s ribbon-cutting ceremony to determine today’s national priorities.
We must learn to value the road that is maintained as much as the road that is constructed.
We must reward prevention as much as reconstruction.
We must measure outcomes rather than announcements.
And we must understand that sometimes the most important thing government can do is not to build something new, but to keep something valuable from collapsing.
That may not make the loudest headline.
It may not produce the biggest billboard.
It may not generate the most impressive commissioning ceremony.
But it is governance.
And, ultimately, governance is the art of knowing what matters most—and having the courage to do it first.
Nze David N. Ugwu is the Managing Consultant of Knowledge Research Consult. He could be reached at [email protected] or +2348037269333
