I have watched with great concern the distortion of facts and deliberate malicious propaganda against the Lagos-Calabar Highway contract.
The recent public presentation of former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s book wherein he described the Lagos-Calabar Highway as ‘wasteful and a fraud ‘ compelled me to weigh in on this debate. I have immense respect for President Obasanjo.
In the absence of Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe, the First Republic president of Nigeria and Chief Obafemi Awolowo, the First Republic Premier of the old Western Region, President Obasanjo unarguably is the most prolific author amongst Nigeria’s former heads of state or presidents on national issues since Nigeria’s independence in 1960. His comments, whether in the form of his books or his famous letters, resonate across Nigeria and beyond.
People pay attention. However, I consider it most uncharitable for him to describe the Lagos-Calabar Highway contract as wasteful. I wish to recall that the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway was first conceptualized by the former Federal Commissioner of Finance in the first republic, Chief Festus Okotie-Eboh.
However, due to many intervening circumstances, including the Biafra-Nigeria war and post-war politics, this project only resumed momentum under the government of President Olusegun Obasanjo, who initiated the Warri-Calabar portion of the project. Subsequent Nigerian governments renamed the project EastWest Road and extended it to Lagos.
Unaccountable trillions of public funds were wasted in the project that was poorly designed and partially implemented. Whatever was implemented was easily washed off by rains and floods. Fortuitously, President Bola Tinubu took up this iconic project as one of the legacy projects his government will be remembered for.
The Lagos-Calabar Highway was redesigned, expanded, and given a timeline for its completion. In order to achieve this lofty objective, the contract was awarded to Hitech Construction Company based on Engineering, Construction, and Financing (EPC+F) contract.
In this arrangement, the Federal Government will provide 30 per cent of the N15 trillion cost, while the contractor will source 70 per cent of the funds with firm commitment to adhere to the completion deadline without excuses. It is important to note that the contractor’s fund will be recovered through toll fees.
The feasibility of this legacy project shows that the economic and social benefits that will accrue to the public along the over 700-kilometer route of the highway include but are not limited to job creation, improved trade, foreign investments, enhanced connectivity of the nine coastal states, production and market centres, tourism development.
Whatever any person may say about President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, it has to be admitted that his agenda for the Nigerian road infrastructural network is the most robust and audacious scheme ever mounted by any Nigerian government since the end of the war in 1970.
President Tinubu scored the bull’s eye when he chose Senator Dave Umahi to drive his nationwide infrastructural road network projects as Minister of Works. Senator Umahi came with an unmatched pedigree in qualification and verifiable cognate experience in civil engineering.
His eight-year tenure as the governor of Ebonyi State transformed what was formally a rusty and backward state into an enviable and economically viable state to be reconned with in Nigeria.
The energy, passion, and commitment he brought to bear in his assignments are unprecedented. He is practically all over the country ceaselessly, supervising and inspecting works of all the contractors under his ministry to ensure strict adherence to standards and strict compliance with specifications.
President Tinubu is dutifully following up with approvals for the release of funds such that there is hardly any section of Nigeria that is complaining of lack of inclusion in government attention to federal roads that travers their area.
Finally, the Lagos-Calabar Highway, upon completion, will be the biggest federal government project in the areas that have over years provided the goose that always laid the golden eggs that sustained Nigeria.
Any person from the 17 states of Southern Nigeria who is not supporting the construction of the Lagos-Calabar Highway should have a rethink.
I urge President Tinubu to pay similar attention to the resuscitation of the deliberately abandoned sea ports in Warri, Bonny, Port Harcourt, Onne, Uyo, and Calabar. Do this, and Nigeria will record and remember you as the father of modern Nigeria.
