EXPOSED: At N3.9 Million Per Metre, Gombe Government Builds Africa’s Most Expensive Fence
THE costliest perimeter fence ever built in the whole world was not the China Wall, in spite of all the complications of that exercise.
The history of the Great China Wall began when fortifications built by various states during the Spring and Autumn [771-476 BC] and Warring State periods [475-221 BC] were connected by the first Emperor of China; Qin Shi Huang, and it was to protect his newly founded Qin Dynasty [221-206 BC] against incursions by Nomads from Inner Asia.
That wall, which was built of rammed earth, and ran from Gansu to the coast of Southern Manchuria, cost USD$95 billion only. The cost was high but it was not as expensive as Gombe government house fence.
The total length of all sections of the China’s wall adds up to about 21,196 kilometers. In a simple term, the length of the China’s wall that gulf this amount is more than 13 times the distance between Lagos and Maiduguri, as the driving distance between Lagos to Maiduguri is 1606 kilometers.
The Berlin Wall, which was built by the German Democratic Republic during the cold war to prevent its population from escaping Soviet-controlled East Berlin to West Berlin, which was controlled by the major Western Allies, separated the two Germany States [East and West] from 1961 to 1989 it was a fortified fortress indeed, built on a massive stretch of land, and running across 96 miles, gulped only USD$25 million.
All these were Great Walls, there is no doubt about that fact, but they are nothing to be compared to a perimeter fence, currently under construction at Gombe government house.
Reports had it that APC-led government of Gombe State has awarded a contract for construction of just 1.7 kilometer perimeter fence round the state government house at an exorbitant coat of Six Billion, Seven Hundred Million Naira (N6,700,000,000.00).
The wall, which is currently under construction, has the total length of 1746.16 metres.
If you divide 6.7 billion (cost of the contract) by 1746.16 (total length of the wall), you will realised that it cost the government Three Million Nine Hundred and Fifty One Thousand, Five Hundred and Twenty Eight Naira (N3,951,528.00) per meter of the fence.
If the said report happens to be true and authentic, then the Gombe government house fence wall is the most expensive fence in the whole of Africa.
Sadly, this is happening in a state bedeviled by poverty, unemployment, lack of hospitals and potable drinking water.
This is happening under the government that fails to provide fertilizer to farmers for two consecutive years. A government that cannot pay N30,000 minimum wage to primary school teachers and staff of the local government councils. A government that fails to provide food for boarding secondary schools students. A government that fails to meet the welfare needs of its health workers etc.
Truth is Gombe has entered one chance and it is only God that can come to our rescue.
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