Benin Stormwater Project: Not Exactly The Elephant In The Room

By Sufuyan Ojeifo

Since 2011 when the administration of Governor Adams Oshiomhole embarked on the bold effort to curtail the perennial flooding in Benin metropolis through the Benin City Stormwater Project, it has continued to generate controversy.

Whereas the motivation behind the project derived from the single request made to Oshiomhole by His Royal Majesty, Oba Erediauwa of blessed memory, to do something about roads and flooding in Benin City, remains unquestionable, the quantum of investment continues to raise a spectre of distrust.

For the records, the project cost was N30 billion – N35 billion in some public claims. It was not free money. It was funded largely through loans raised from the capital market through state bonds, alongside state revenues. Governor Oshiomhole himself made this point when he flagged off Phase Two of the Upper Siluko Road reconstruction as part of the stormwater masterplan, noting that nine adjoining streets including Etete, Uwelu, Igbinazuwa, Asoro, Obakpolor, Adolo College and Uwasota would be rehabilitated.

In practical terms, less than N20 billion was expended. Over 30 percent progression was achieved – including the 13-foot-deep channel along New Lagos Road linking the canal at Five Junction to the canal at the Traditional Ground – and the completed portions were inaugurated by then President Muhammadu Buhari.

The expectation, as with every masterplanned infrastructure, was that successive governments would drive it to completion.

That did not happen. Godwin Obaseki, who was an integral part of the Oshiomhole administration – Chairman of the Economic Team, even if only in name – and who was installed as successor by Oshiomhole, discontinued the project due to a personal political feud. He tagged the project as a scam. A fraud. A contract to defraud Edo people. He threatened a probe.

In March 2021, while inspecting the Textile Mill Road catchment, Obaseki declared: “The stormwater project was a fraud. It was a contract to defraud Edo people. From what I see in this catchment area, the project was never designed to take water away from the area.”

He lambasted his former colleague, Clem Agba, who as Commissioner for Environment supervised Phase One, for overseeing a project with what he called a two-metre design flaw – draining water from low ground to high plane.

The questions observers asked then remain valid today: If Obaseki, as Chief Economic Adviser and later Chairman of the Economic Team, was part of the conception, why did he not probe it when he succeeded Oshiomhole in 2016 under the APC, but waited until after they fell apart politically? The Edo chapter of the Coalition of Registered Political Parties, CRPP, itself described his probe threat as diversionary.

In the end, nothing came out of the noise. The probe never happened. But the flooding mischief continued unabated for all of Obaseki’s eight years. Even the most basic maintenance of desilting existing drainages that would have enhanced free flow of flood water into the bigger underground channels was neglected.

Then came Governor Monday Okpebholo to inherit the existential flooding problem. He never applied a sense of urgency to it. He simply slept on it for far too long. He did not hit the ground running.

An administration that was prepared ab initio with a strategic master plan would have been guided by a clear priorities agenda. From November 2024 to July 2025, there was no official reaction to the flooding that continued to ravage every nook and cranny of Benin City. Nothing happened from 2025 to July 2026. Meanwhile, Benin flooding had become a tragic spectacle.

It was only on July 16, 2026 – well into the rainy season – that the Okpebholo administration announced conclusion of plans to reactivate the second phase of the comprehensive stormwater project. According to Super FM’s report of the monthly media briefing by the Ministry of Information, the Commissioner for Environment and Sustainability, Barrister Nosa Adams, said Governor Okpebholo had paid N800 million counterpart funding to the European Union Investment Bank for the project which the Obaseki administration terminated.

His words: “His Excellency has followed up with the European Union Investment Bank and ensured the payment of the counterpart funding. Edo is one of the states that promptly fulfilled this obligation to enable the continuation of the Benin Storm Water Project, which was halted by the last administration. Now that the counterpart funding has been paid, the second and final phase… is expected to commence within the next two months. We intend to extend the project to areas such as Tomline, Siluko Road and Ekewan Road.”

The Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Prince Kassim Afegbua, added that government plans a massive reclamation of the GRA alongside construction of drainage channels to channel floodwaters into the Ogba River.

Commendable on paper. But did reactivation happen within the promised two months – latest end of October? I doubt it did. Could contractors have mobilised to site during the peak of the rainy season? As a layman in building and civil engineering construction, I need some education here.

If there was no mobilisation, it means there was no value addition. It also means nothing was done to extenuate the flooding mischief. So I can safely insist on the validity of the reports upon which I grounded my last week column entitled: “Benin Flooding, Okpebholo’s Cluelessness and Tenebe’s AK-47 Mischief.”

An official of the Okpebholo administration felt uncomfortable with the claim that the GRA was flooded, making vehicular movement problematic. He asked when last I visited Benin. As a journalist, there are various ways to source credible information without necessarily being in situ. He complained that ascribing cluelessness to the governor was unfair. My simple response: the failure of an administration to prioritise the perennial flooding of its capital city is a monumental act of cluelessness.

The official would later send me the Super FM Facebook link just to draw my attention to the announcement that government had concluded plans to reactivate the second phase – not that reactivation had begun. I grinned.

I have since been musing over the sketchy details of critical components of the reactivation plan in terms of investment. How much is the N800 million counterpart funding, which I consider tokenistic, expected to draw down from the European Union? Is it a loan, a grant, or what? What is the total cost? What is the timeline? What is the comprehensive scope beyond Tomline, Siluko and Ekewan?

I do not think the Okpebholo administration is very serious about driving the stormwater project to completion. I suspect it may just sustain its presence on the project with investments that are at best mere tokenism, just enough to say something is being done while Benin continues to sink each rainy season.

I challenge the administration to fault my suspicion – not with press briefings and promises, but with timelines, costing, engineering designs, and visible mobilisation to site.

Until then, the Benin Stormwater Project remains not exactly the elephant in the room – it IS the room itself, flooded.