The Federal Government has announced a rerouting of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to prevent potential damage to subsea cables owned by telecommunication firms.
Additionally, the project’s scale has been reduced from ten lanes to six.
According to The PUNCH, Minister of Works, David Umahi, revealed these changes during a meeting with contractors in Abuja on Tuesday.
He also mentioned that the government has disbursed N10 billion as compensation to property owners affected by the necessary demolitions for the construction of the 700km highway.
The first 47 kilometers of the project are set to be opened to the public by next May.
The Lagos-Calabar highway, which commenced construction earlier this year, is designed to span nine states with two branches extending to the northern states, utilizing concrete pavement.
A committee was formed to review, assess, and compensate landowners impacted by the construction. On May 1st, the government began disbursing N2.75 billion in compensation.
Section one of the highway will start at Eko Atlantic and conclude at the Lekki deep sea port.
Umahi stated, “For the three legacy projects by the administration, the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, we have cut down the project size to six lanes, especially from sections two, three, and four, it shows you that we mean business. Some people have been writing that we have stopped the project. No project is stopped. As we are talking now, over four kilometres of concrete road has been completed on six lanes.
“We had to establish a new path due to complaints made by MTN on its subsea cable and Okuaja community, we had to reroute not to the new alignment, not to the gazetted alignment but far away from the two, and we came back to a new alignment at kilometre 25. So the work is going and it’s moving smoothly. We have paid the total compensation of close to N10bn. we are not owing and the contractor is highly commended for a very beautiful job, commitment and being very reasonable.
“These projects are investments, and they have inherent returns on investments, By May 29, 2025, we will have completed section one of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway. Apart from the land, we are going to acquire for tourism, factories and industries when we tow the road within 10 years we would recover the cost of the money so it is an investment.”
He added, “Sections three and four have been finalised, but we are going to do stakeholder engagement in either Cross River or Akwa Ibom because that is where those sections will get started so that we can ensure procurement. But the design is almost completed.”
During the meeting, the minister also addressed the issue of funding shortages, noting that the government inherited over 2,600 projects valued at N15 trillion.
This financial burden, coupled with the initiation of 330 emergency projects totaling N260 billion, has contributed to delays in payments to contractors. Despite these challenges, over 80 percent of the emergency projects have been completed.
Umahi further emphasized that the ministry will no longer permit contractors to excessively influence project costs through price variations.
He also announced that Julius Berger is set to resume construction on the remaining section of the Abuja-Kano road after resolving previous challenges.
“I commend Julius Berger very highly, some of you thought we were going to be quarrelling but yesterday we resolved a lot of our issues and by this week, the Abuja-Kano work will resume.”
Regarding the recently flooded Kara bridge, Umahi assured that the issue has been resolved, preventing future flooding.
He also noted that CCTV installation on the bridge would be completed soon, ensuring rapid response from security agencies to avert any incidents.
“Also, in the next few days or weeks, we would have completed the installation of CCTV on the bridge so that we can checkmate what is happening there and we have less than 5 minutes of response time from securities agencies to avert any form of incidents,” he stated.
