Nigeria Begins Use Of Cement For Road Construction Against Asphalt.

For the first time, the need for cement based option for road construction in Nigeria instead asphalt for surfacing received a major boost at the weekend, with experts both local and international listing some of the advantages of cement over other material. The conference, entitled, “Exploring Cement Based Option for Sustainable Road Construction in Nigeria”, which was organised by Business Day in collaboration with the Cement Manufacturers’ Association of Nigeria (CMAN), drew the attention of government to the universal acceptance of cement concrete road as the best option all over the world. Stakeholders from road and transportation sector comprising policy makers, construction experts, politicians and cement manufacturers attended the conference. In canvassing for cement based option for road construction, it was noted that 40 per cent of roads in developed countries like United States of America and West Germany are made of cement concrete, whereas 2 per cent of roads in emerging economies like India and less than 0.1 per cent in Nigeria are built with cement concrete. Justifying reasons for the need for concrete cement as alternative material to asphalt overlay for road construction, Chairman of CMAN, Mr. Joseph Makoju, said road built with cement is between 25 per cent and 50 per cent cheaper than that constructed with asphalt. Besides, he explained that though cement concrete road is 10 per cent more ex-pensive to construct than asphalt but that the lifespan of a road built with former is longer than that of the latter.In term of maintenance, he said cement concrete road becomes cheaper than asphalt as less maintenance is required. He said, “ The major cause for the collapse of our road network earlier mentioned was identified as our poor maintenance culture. In search for a cost effective solution, it was natural there-fore to search for an alternative surfacing material which when compared with as-phalt will require minimal maintenance hence our interest in cement concrete roads for Nigeria.” Managing Director/ Chief Execu-tive Officer, Lafarge WAPCO Cement, Mr. Joe Hudson, in his presentation on “The Nigerian Cement Industry”, noted that Nigerian economy has potential for growth. And as such, he said demand for cement would continue to increase due to investment in energy supply, road, water, housing and other infrastructure projects. According to him, Nigeria cement ca-pacity will triple in 10 years from 2010 to 2020 and that the nation will be the sec-ond highest producer of cement in Africa after Egypt, adding that by 2015, Nigeria will be an exporter to the West African re-gion, saying it has capital investment of over N1.8 trillion He listed major challenges of cement industry to include poor energy supply, roads and rail to carry cement to the mar-ket, and inadequate skills in the sector, urging government on the need to find solutions to them.