Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road: Leave The Talk, Let’s Face The Business

DADA OLUSEGUN 

The Lagos-Calabar coastal road project is undoubtedly Nigeria’s most ambitious transport infrastructure project since independence. In terms of scope, distance covered, and connectivity, not even the 3rd Mainland Bridge in Lagos, the 2nd Niger Bridge in Onitsha/Asaba, or the Abuja-Kano expressway comes close. It is simply a world-class iconic project.

Before I go further, I want us to take a brief trip back to history. The idea for a major coastal federal road in Nigeria was first conceptualized in 1955 by the then Federal Commissioner of Finance, Late Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh, who hails from present-day Delta State. Okotie-Eboh proposed the development of a network of rail and road routes from Lokoja-Benin City-Koko-Warri-Onitsha to aid the movement of goods. Specifically, he proposed the Koko-Ogheye-Epe dual carriageway project that was to traverse Delta and Ondo states and terminate at Epe in Lagos. This road is basically meant to hug the coastal areas of Delta and Ondo states and shorten travel distance between Lagos and the Niger Delta and the rest of the Eastern region. The project did not take off in the first Republic.

During the administration of Olusegun Obasanjo as civilian president, he elected to commence construction of a variant of the coastal road from Warri in Delta State to Calabar. This was what came to be known as the East-West road. In 2010, however, the government of President Goodluck Jonathan through NDDC also awarded the Koko-Ogheye-Epe road to Levant Construction Ltd. The Lagos State government on its part during the administration of then-Governor Bola Tinubu was also independently planning to build a coastal road that will span the entire Lekki-Epe axis, which it foresaw as the next major economic frontier in Lagos and the country. Thirteen years later, the chief visionary of that Lagos coastal road is now Nigeria’s President. President Tinubu then decided to marry his Lagos coastal road vision with that of Okotie-Eboh’s Koko-Ogheye-Epe coastal road vision in addition to the thinking behind the East-West road to come up with a variant of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road that we have now.

project in favor of Hitech Construction company. Going by the estimated N15.6 trillion cost for the entire coastal road stretch, the federal government’s counterpart fund is around N4.68 trillion. The federal government, in a bid to hasten the commencement of the project, decided to finance construction of the first 47km in phase 1 of the road project, which runs from Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island to the Lekki Deep Sea port. The contract sum of N1.06 trillion was awarded for this section by FEC to Hitech, and construction is ongoing with unprecedented speed. Whatever funding FG is providing for this section of the road will come under the FG’s counterpart fund. I must emphasize that this funding model adopted by the Tinubu administration is the best model possible, considering the country’s revenue size. This is a monumental infra project being majorly funded with private finance. This is possible because the coastal road is extremely viable.

Nigeria’s biggest economic zone, Lekki Free Trade Zone housing the Dangote refinery, Lekki Deep sea port, and many existing and potential industries to the rest of the south and the north via a 10-lane dual carriageway. The potential impact of this road on our GDP growth is huge, considering the fact that it will facilitate an increase in economic activity as well as improve ease of movement of goods and people and invariably ease of doing business. Like I mentioned earlier, the road will drastically cut down travel time between Lagos to the South-South and South-East to less than six hours through an alternative shorter route and open new corridors of development. With the 1000km spur from Badagry in the Atlantic coast to Sokoto on the edge of the Sahel, we would also have a North-South modern highway that smoothens land transport, connectivity, and trade between the north and south. As a growing nation that keeps expanding, it doesn’t make sense to limit ourselves to existing roads (which are equally getting massive attention by the Renewed Hope administration). We need to plan for the future. When the 3rd Mainland bridge was being conceptualized, many back then argued that it was not necessary or not a priority since there were already two bridges connecting the Lagos island to the mainland, but look at the importance of the bridge today. In fact, the Lagos State government has approved the design for the 4th mainland bridge – a more ambitious undertaking. That’s grand vision!

• coastal road can trigger its extraction. It will only take innovative thinking and belief. Sadly, many of our compatriots are instead exuding pessimism and pedestrian thinking with their opposition to this grand project.

As I conclude, I want to state that the hallmark of extraordinary leadership is having the vision and conviction that a dream can be achieved. A leader inspires the power and energy to get things done. He has a poorly developed sense of fear and overlooks the concept of the odds against him. His focus is not usually on the present nor on the obstacles that may stand in the way of his vision but on how to attain that vision by surmounting the obstacles. While many critics of the colossal Lagos-Calabar coastal road are busy extrapolating how many decades it may take to complete the project using other existing roads of different models to judge or how the funding will come, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is looking at the various pathways that will deliver the project. On the evidence of the pace of construction on the project sites, it is obvious that he has found many pathways. President Bola Tinubu is a visionary. He creates the vision of the future. He sees what others do not readily see, which is why people usually criticize his vision at the onset and later turn to embrace or even copy them. This is one of such times.

The birth of a modern Nigeria has begun with President Tinubu in charge and I have only one admonition for our dear compatriots who are still skeptical about this journey; Leave the talk, let’s face the business!