The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has revealed that the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway still lacks a single comprehensive engineering design, more than two years after construction started in March 2024. He said the project is being designed and costed in separate sections rather than under one master design.
Umahi, who spoke during a one-hour-30-minute interview on Arise Television monitored by our correspondent on Friday, said there was no comprehensive engineering design covering the entire highway, which the Federal Government has presented as one of President Bola Tinubu’s flagship infrastructure projects.
The disclosure comes amid persistent questions over the project’s overall cost, construction process, environmental approvals and the government’s capacity to complete the highway.
Defending the cost of the first section, the minister said one standard carriageway comprising two lanes would cost about $5.5m per kilometre (N7.3bn), based on his comparison with a coastal highway project in the neighbouring Republic of Benin.
He, however, challenged the use of an estimated average cost to calculate the cost of the entire 750km highway, arguing that the terrain, bridges and engineering requirements differed across sections.
