Why Nigeria keeps building what it cannot keep

Every government likes to build something that can be photographed: roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, boreholes and many others. Of course, a new project offers a ribbon to cut, a plaque to unveil and an achievement to present before the next election. However, maintaining existing infrastructure offers none of those political rewards. Indeed, history remembers societies not for how much they built but for what they managed to preserve.

Nigeria has embraced the opposite logic. Across the country, public assets deteriorate long before their expected lifespan. Roads develop potholes within a few rainy seasons. Water schemes fail because broken pumps are never repaired. School buildings crumble. Environmental projects disappear once contractors leave the site. The familiar explanation quickly follows: Nigerians lack a maintenance culture.

That diagnosis is too convenient. It blames citizens while overlooking the institutions that shape public behaviour. Nigeria’s maintenance problem is largely the product of its development model. The country has become better at constructing projects than building the institutions needed to sustain them.

Development is often reduced to visible infrastructure. Governments budget for roads, classrooms, boreholes and housing estates because they are tangible and politically rewarding. Procurement systems finance construction, while commissioning ceremonies demonstrate that something has been delivered.

Far less attention is paid to the questions that determine whether those investments survive. Who owns the asset? Who maintains it? Where will maintenance funding come from? Who remains accountable after the contractor has been paid and political attention has shifted?

Nigeria repeatedly celebrates the beginning of development while neglecting the systems that sustain it.

This is not because the government lacks the capacity to organise complex programmes. The expansion of telecommunications, improvements in tax administration and large-scale urban developments show that public institutions can perform effectively where ownership is clear and incentives are aligned.

The weakness appears where assets depend on collective responsibility. Faced with environmental restoration, rural water systems or community infrastructure, the government often falls back on procurement instead of institution-building.

Need trees? Award contracts for seedlings.

Need irrigation? Procure equipment.

Need rural water? Drill boreholes.

Need maintenance? Award another contract.

Contracts are necessary, but they cannot substitute for governance. Procurement delivers assets. Institutions ensure those assets continue creating value. When the government confuses one for the other, development becomes a cycle of construction and replacement rather than preservation and growth.

Politics reinforces the problem. New projects attract publicity; maintenance does not. Success is measured by projects commissioned rather than projects still functioning years later. Political incentives therefore favour starting new schemes instead of protecting existing investments.

Citizens respond accordingly. The government routinely describes farmers, traders, women and communities as beneficiaries. The language reflects a deeper philosophy. Beneficiaries receive assistance. Partners share responsibility.

Sustainable development requires more partners than beneficiaries. Communities across Nigeria already demonstrate this principle. Residents contribute to buying electricity transformers, maintaining markets, repairing local roads and supporting community schools. Families carefully maintain generators because their livelihoods depend on them. Religious organisations preserve buildings that have served generations. Nigerians do not neglect everything they own. They maintain what they control, value and expect to pass on.

Ownership creates responsibility. The same lesson appears elsewhere in Africa. Some successful environmental restoration programmes succeeded not because governments distributed seedlings but because farmers were given recognised rights over the trees they protected. Once communities became custodians rather than spectators, degraded landscapes gradually recovered.

The implication extends beyond environmental policy. Public assets endure when institutions give people a genuine stake in their success.

Improving maintenance therefore requires more than larger maintenance budgets. Every publicly funded project should include a legally enforceable lifecycle management plan before construction begins. Maintenance funding should be treated as part of the original investment, not an afterthought. Government performance should be judged by whether projects remain functional years after commissioning, not simply by how many were completed.

Communities should also play a formal role in managing infrastructure that directly affects them. Civil society, professional bodies and local governments should monitor public assets throughout their lifespan rather than focusing only on procurement and contract awards.

Political success must also be redefined. Governments should earn recognition not for launching the highest number of projects but for preserving the wealth previous administrations have already created.

Perhaps it is time to retire the familiar complaint that Nigerians lack a maintenance culture. The deeper problem is that the country has too often built infrastructure without building stewardship, awarded contracts without creating custodians and celebrated construction without investing in continuity.

A ribbon-cutting ceremony should never mark the end of government responsibility; it must mark the beginning of institutional stewardship. The true test of governance is not the politics of commissioning, but the discipline of maintenance. When Nigeria learns to build institutions with the same zeal it uses to launch projects, our infrastructure will cease to be a monument to waste, and instead become the enduring foundation of our national development.