No Master Design For 750km Lagos-Calabar Highway, Umahi Admits

The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has admitted that the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has no single engineering design covering the entire route, more than two years after construction began in March 2024.

Umahi made the disclosure during a one-hour-30-minute interview on Arise Television monitored by our correspondent on Friday, explaining that the project was being designed and costed section by section.

The admission comes amid persistent questions over the highway’s total cost, construction process, environmental approvals and the federal government’s capacity to complete the project, which is one of President Bola Tinubu’s flagship infrastructure initiatives.

“There is no single design of any road project that came out, you know, in reality, at the end of the project, the way it was designed,” Umahi said.

Asked directly whether an engineering design covered the entire highway, the minister replied, “So these are the procedures. So there is no one single design that the 750 kilometres of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is holding. There’s no one single design.”

Umahi said the highway had been conceived as far back as 1955, while the concept was gazetted in 2006. However, he maintained that he had not found a complete engineering design, subsoil investigation or other detailed technical documents covering the entire route in the ministry’s archives.

According to him, engineering designs are developed for individual sections after environmental assessments and soil investigations establish the route, terrain and technical requirements.

He said the procurement arrangement approved by the Federal Executive Council required the project to be procured section by section, arguing that differences in terrain, bridges and engineering requirements made it inappropriate to calculate the overall cost by multiplying an estimated average cost by 750 kilometres.

“Who fixed this N15tn that people are just, you know, brandishing everywhere? Who fixed it? And let me also clarify that nobody has the right to do an average cost and multiply by 750,” he said.

The absence of a single engineering design and a comprehensive project cost raises questions about how the government intends to establish the highway’s total financial commitment, assess its overall value and communicate its eventual cost to Nigerians.

Defending the cost of the first section, Umahi said a standard two-lane carriageway would cost about $5.5 million (N7.3 billion) per kilometre, based on his comparison with a coastal highway project in neighbouring Benin Republic.

He referred to a 47-kilometre section of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and a 47.47-kilometre coastal road in Benin Republic, which he said cost N1.06 trillion.

The minister cited a cost of about N7.5 billion per kilometre for a three-carriageway configuration before adjusting the estimate to reflect a standard two-lane carriageway. He put the adjusted cost at approximately $5.5 million per kilometre, using an exchange rate of N1,330 to the dollar.

He said differences in road configurations and project specifications must be considered before comparing the costs of the two projects.

On environmental approvals, Umahi confirmed that construction began after the ministry obtained a provisional Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) certificate.

“Every project has provisional ESIA,” he said, adding that environmental issues, resettlement and other associated programmes were being considered during implementation.

He explained that a final certificate would follow as the project progressed and outstanding requirements were addressed. He also maintained that environmental assessments were being conducted section by section rather than through a single assessment covering the entire route.

Umahi said the ministry had obtained final environmental approval for the first 47-kilometre section.

The highway has attracted criticism over its cost, route and environmental implications since construction began. The federal government has defended it as a major transport corridor intended to improve connectivity along Nigeria’s coastline.

Umahi also clarified his remarks about an additional 400 kilometres linked to the project, following questions about whether President Tinubu had ordered a diversion from the original route.

He said the additional stretch involved connecting the coastal highway to the existing East-West Road through Edo State, rather than abandoning the original alignment.

“The alignment is intact,” he said, insisting that Edo remained part of the route, which traverses Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.

The minister acknowledged that describing the connection as a diversion was inaccurate, explaining that the plan was to provide a spur linking the coastal highway to the East-West Road.

“It’s to also put a spur. The word divert, if I used that then it’s a slip of the tongue. We are talking about the connection of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, we are connecting it also to have a spur on the East-West Road,” Umahi said.

He added that the connection would provide an alternative route and support the reconstruction of the East-West Road, parts of which he said had deteriorated and fallen below flood levels.

Umahi said design work on the connection was ongoing, stressing that it should not be confused with the original 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.