Now that President Bola Tinubu has greenlighted the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, those shooting down the project should go and “sempe,” or cool off, as fuji musician, King Wasiu Ayinde Marshall, may have put it.
The wet blankets remind one of former Military Head of State, Major General Muhammadu Buhari, who reportedly stood down the Lagos Metroline that was initiated by the first Lagos State Governor, Mobolaji Johnson, and actualised by Second Republic Governor, Lateef Jakande.
It looks as if the campaign against the project, which has a road and rail line, is along regional and political lines; the two most acerbic considerations that anti-Nigerians always deploy to deepen the agony of Nigerians.
While Nigerians, whose states are along the coastal line, that the road-cum-railway will pass through, are enthusiastic and supportive of the project, those in the hinterland of Nigeria do not seem to want it, conveniently forgetting that the road will link northern Nigeria through Badagry in Lagos State and Calabar in Cross River State.
While Nigerians, whose states are along the coastal line, that the road-cum-railway will pass through, are enthusiastic and supportive of the project, those in the hinterland of Nigeria do not seem to want it, conveniently forgetting that the road will link northern Nigeria through Badagry in Lagos State and Calabar in Cross River State.
Festus Okotie-Eboh, Nigeria’s (flamboyant) First Republic Minister of Finance, who first mooted the idea of a (less ambitious) coastal road to link what is today’s South-South region in 1955, met with a wall of resistance.
The idea was ferociously knocked down by British colonialists, who didn’t want a unified Nigerian economy, and the northern Nigerian political establishment, who felt that a unified southern Nigerian economy could take them out in the scheme of things.
Those who clapped when former President Buhari took a loan to extend Nigeria’s rail line from Kano to Maradi in Niger Republic, his father’s home country, with a $13 billion economy, are now unhappy with a project that will link the economies of the nine coastal states of Nigeria.
Whereas the colonial masters built two separate railway lines, from Lagos, and from Calabar, to northern Nigeria, to freight farm produce for export to Britain, Nigerians are fighting, irrationally, to prevent a South-to-South railway that will link the most vibrant economies of their country!
The hysteria along political lines is so manifest that you could almost cut it with a blunt knife. Because their presidential candidate or political party lost the 2023 presidential election, they are willing to sacrifice the merit of the project on the altar of partisan politics, even though elections are over.
It is commendable that governments of the coastal states embrace the project, despite their varied partisan affiliations of the ruling All Progressives Congress and the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.
After making allowance for the savage depreciation of the naira, the $213.20 billion economy of the nine coastal states (of Lagos, Ogun, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River) is nearly half of the $477 billion economy of Nigeria.
If the Africa Continental Free Trade Area is formed “to create a single market” throughout the vast African continent, with about 1.2 billion population and $3.1 trillion economy, how much so the economies of federating states of Nigeria, with (probably) 230 million citizens and $477 billion Gross Domestic Product?
The railway aspect of the coastal highway could become the nucleus of the Calabar-Lagos-Porto Novo-Dakar Railway being canvassed to run through the Economic Community of West African States sub-region.
Over time, it may even extend eastwards, to include Central Africa and Eastern Africa, to fulfil the AfCFTA vision. Chairman Mao of China once said that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a footstep.
Just as Tinubu has said, that, “The immense potential of AfCFTA can only be maximally realised when there is concrete economic integration at the different sub-regional levels,” the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is one good way to achieve the integration.
Now is the time, for this project, even if the Tinubu administration must ensure that the Environmental Impact Assessment demanded by some is done and the Ceaser’s wife executing the project must be above suspicion.
But exactly what could the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, be hiding about the EIA by citing Section 15(b) of the Freedom of Information Act? It is strange that after giving the impression that an EIA was carried out the minister is now talking about a diversion in order to avoid damage to a power plant and telecommunications cables.
And, of course, those Nigerians whose properties unfortunately lie on the established right of way should be identified and paid their due compensation after their rights of ownership have been duly confirmed. No fake owners should be smuggled into the compensation scheme.
Also, the government must satisfy the call by well-meaning Nigerians that the seeming opacity in the award of the project contract, as well as its financing template, must be more transparent than it seems to be at the moment.
The allegations that the National Assembly never had an opportunity to look at the process of the award of the contract or its financing are damning. Tinubu must not gloss over this omission by ignoring the call for transparency, though there is a claim that the Federal Executive Council approved N2.66 trillion for the first and second phases of the contract.
The Nigerian government should avoid what some cynics have described as “The Nicodemus Syndrome,” or a stealth award of contracts without going through open and generally accepted tendering processes.
Some rabid critics of this government have (correctly) identified close to 13 projects that have not complied with the provisions of Nigeria’s Public Procurement Act that requires the publication of the names of contractors, value of the contract and duration of the contract.
Some civil society groups, like BudgIT and Tracka, have complained that the seeming lack of transparency has prevented them from being able to monitor the status of many projects in times past.
Someone claims that Nigeria has somewhere between 56,000 and 60,000 abandoned projects, valued at a whopping N17 trillion, scattered all over the country. An intentional act by the government to openly identify its projects will encourage and enable project monitoring, implementation and completion.
Despite the pushback by cynics, the advantages of the coastal highway –avoidance of road accidents, traffic hold-ups that can cause terrible delays and missed appointments or late delivery of goods– should be acknowledged.
The big advantage of the railway component of the coastal road is that you can transport a high volume of goods much faster, under any weather condition, over a long distance and with relatively lower costs.
Think of the advantage of shipping agricultural and mineral resources within the southern Nigerian economy. Think of the movement of cocoa from Umudike, Abia State, to chocolate manufacturers in Ikeja, Lagos, or the other way round.
Also think of the easy movement of goods, imported through the Lagos Port and Tin Can Island Port, in Lagos, eastwards through the nine coastal states and to the southeastern region of the country.
The highway provides an alternative to the Lagos-Shagamu Interchange-Benin-Asaba Road that connects the entire South-East region and the easterly South-South corridor that includes Rivers, Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states.
Maybe when they learn that goods valued at N350 billion were left unsold and 767 manufacturing companies were shut down in Nigeria in 2023 alone, critics will understand why everything necessary to refire the economy should be done.
So, it’s a yes, a resounding yes, for the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
