David Umahi, the Minister of Works, has refuted allegations from Atiku Abubakar regarding the costs of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway project. Addressing claims that each kilometer of the road costs N8 billion, Umahi confirmed the actual expense to be N4 billion per kilometer, totaling N2.8 trillion for the 700-kilometer project.
The minister’s clarification came during his appearance on TVC News Hour, where he emphasized that the project, contrary to accusations, followed proper procurement processes and was awarded on a counter-funding basis, not as a Public-Private Partnership.
He disputed Atiku’s critique of the project’s financial management, particularly the N1.06 trillion released for the initial phase, which the former vice president labeled as potentially fraudulent.
Umahi also countered claims made by Atiku last week regarding the lack of competitive bidding in awarding the contract to Hitech, owned by Gilbert Chagoury.
He promised transparency in revealing the project’s true costs and defended the administration’s decision, citing increased costs due to inflation and supply chain disruptions.
Highlighting the extensive scale of the highway, Umahi noted it would feature 10 lanes with additional shoulder space totaling 23 meters, and an expansive concrete pavement width of 59 meters.
“People are just building castles without knowledge and they don’t know figures, I will run the figures for you. We are going to compare the cross-section of the one the former vice president mentioned that was renegotiated for $11.1bn for 700 km.”
“So you have to now ask what was there to be constructed. And what was there to be constructed is the only available design from NDDC. They had designed the entire 700 km but we are not following exactly that pattern or right of way. We have a different modification. The original design had two carriageways on each side of the road with four lanes.
“And in the middle, they did not provide for the train track. It’s just going to be a water-collecting basin. But the coastal road we are constructing has a total of 10 lanes, you know, not only that it has a total of 10 lanes, it also has what we called shoulders.
“And the total shoulders can be put at about 23 metres. So when you put the total concrete pavement we are doing, it’s about 59 metres. When you put the total flexible pavement that he quoted it’s about 23 metres.” he said.
Continuing, he said, “And so when you run the figures, you now find out that under his calculation, it is giving you about over N19bn per kilometre. Now if you divide it by the 23 kilometres that they are doing, it is about 2.225 times a standard superhighway carriageway, which is N11.55 billion.
“Whereas what we are doing, if you divide it, you get N5.167bn, So when you now divide using our N1.067 trillion, you get about N4 billion per kilometre. If you go back to what he has quoted, you will get over N8 billion. So using concrete, which should be more expensive because of the kind of terrain we have, and using flexible pavement, which shouldn’t stand the coastal route, you will find out that our cost is N4bn instead of the N8billion claimed by the former vice president.”
