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BENIN CITY, September 7, 2026 — The Federal Ministry of Works has moved to terminate its concession agreement with the Benin-Asaba Expressway Concession Company Limited (BAECC), accusing the firm of grossly violating multiple provisions of its contract and worsening, rather than improving, one of Nigeria’s most heavily-travelled federal highways.
Federal Controller of Works in Edo State, Engr. Babatunde Tajudeen, disclosed the move at a press briefing on the project, saying the ministry had proposed a mutual termination of the concession. He said BAECC’s work had caused further deterioration of the 125-kilometre highway, which runs from Ring Road Roundabout in Benin City to Summit Junction in Asaba, Delta State, and expressed doubt that the concessionaire could complete the project within its approved Bill of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation.
“The ministry was considering measures to restore the highway and ease the hardship being experienced by motorists,” Tajudeen said, according to Channels Television.
A Pilot Project Gone Wrong
The Benin-Asaba corridor is one of the pilot projects under the Federal Government’s Highway Development and Management Initiative (HDMI), a scheme designed to attract private-sector funding and technical expertise into national road infrastructure. Its unraveling is a setback for that policy, given the corridor’s importance as a link between the South-East, South-South, and parts of the South-West.
Tajudeen said the ministry has urged BAECC to immediately reinstate asphalt it had removed from the road and to allow technically competent government contractors to intervene on the project while the concession dispute is resolved. He appealed to motorists to exercise patience, saying Works Minister David Umahi was pursuing legitimate alternatives to restore the highway.
Weeks of Escalating Conflict
Monday’s announcement is the culmination of a dispute that has been building publicly since late August. At a stakeholders’ engagement in Benin on August 27, Umahi directly ordered BAECC off the project site, accusing the company of “negative work” — asphalt removal and drainage changes that worsened road conditions rather than improving them — and instructed it to formally request contract termination.
“I spoke with your boss today, who called from America, and he spoke with a very good understanding of the issues, but since yesterday, when we met you, your approach has been very different. You have been sounding arrogant,” Umahi said at the time, according to multiple Nigerian outlets. “Therefore, our directive going forward is that you should be removed from the site of this project, within the limits of our rights.”
Umahi also directed BAECC to urgently clear obstructions blocking traffic flow, provide a proper technical design for stormwater canalisation, redirect water that had been channelled onto the carriageway, and restore the asphalt it had stripped from the road.
BAECC’s Head of Legal and Compliance, Peterson Fabian, responded at the time by appealing for more time to reach what he called “a more robust collaborative way of handling things going forward,” rather than proceeding immediately to termination. Senator Allwell Onyesoh, a member of the Senate Committee on Works, said commuters and other road users had described conditions on the corridor in stark terms amid the dispute.
What Happens Next
With the ministry now formally proposing termination rather than further negotiation, attention turns to how quickly government contractors can be mobilised to address the road’s deteriorated condition, and to the terms under which BAECC’s exit — and any compensation or liability questions arising from it — will be settled. Neither BAECC nor Minister Umahi’s office had issued a fresh public response to Monday’s termination announcement as of this report.
