Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Has No Master Design, Says Umahi
Minister of Works David Umahi has disclosed that the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has no single comprehensive engineering design, more than two years after construction commenced in March 2024.
Umahi made the disclosure during an interview on Arise Television, explaining that the Federal Government was developing engineering designs and determining construction costs for different sections of the highway rather than working with one master design for the entire route.
The highway is one of President Bola Tinubu’s flagship infrastructure projects and is expected to connect Lagos with coastal communities across several states before terminating in Calabar, Cross River State.
According to the minister, the absence of a comprehensive design covering the entire route reflects the approach adopted for planning and executing the project, with individual sections undergoing separate engineering assessments.
He explained that detailed designs were developed after environmental assessments and soil investigations established the specific conditions, terrain and technical requirements of each section.
Umahi also stated that he had not found a complete engineering design, subsoil investigation or other detailed technical documents covering the entire highway in the ministry’s archives, despite the project’s earlier conceptual history.
The minister said the highway was conceived as far back as 1955, while the concept was gazetted in 2006.
He added that the procurement arrangement approved by the Federal Executive Council required the project to be handled in sections, making it inappropriate to calculate the total cost by multiplying an estimated average construction cost per kilometre by the highway’s entire length.
Addressing concerns about the project’s overall financial implications, Umahi challenged estimates suggesting that the 750-kilometre highway would cost approximately N15tn.
He argued that construction costs would vary depending on the terrain, bridges and other engineering requirements across different sections of the route.
The minister maintained that applying a uniform average cost to the entire highway would not accurately reflect the financial requirements of the project.
Defending the cost of the first section, Umahi estimated that a standard two-lane carriageway would cost approximately $5.5m per kilometre, equivalent to about N7.3bn at the exchange rate used in his calculation.
He based his comparison partly on a 47.47-kilometre coastal road project in the neighbouring Republic of Benin, which he said cost N1.06tn.
Using the comparison, the minister cited an estimated cost of about N7.5bn per kilometre for a three-carriageway configuration before adjusting the figure to arrive at the estimated cost of a standard two-lane carriageway.
However, the absence of a single comprehensive design and an established overall project cost has continued to raise questions about the highway’s total financial commitment, construction planning and the government’s ability to communicate its expected completion cost.
The project has attracted public attention over its cost, construction process, environmental approvals and implementation, given its scale and significance to Nigeria’s coastal transportation network.
Umahi, however, maintained that the highway’s cost must be assessed based on the specific engineering requirements of its individual sections rather than through a generalised estimate applied to the entire 750-kilometre route.
