The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has challenged the N15tn cost estimate attached to the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, questioning how the figure was calculated despite admitting that the 750-kilometre project has no single comprehensive engineering design.
Umahi said the highway, which began construction in March 2024, was being designed and costed in sections, making it inappropriate to apply an average construction cost to the entire route.
Speaking during an interview on Arise Television on Friday, the minister questioned the source of the widely circulated estimate.
“Who fixed this N15tn that people are just, you know, brandishing everywhere? Who fixed it?” he asked.
He argued that the highway’s varying terrain, bridges and engineering requirements meant that construction costs would differ from one section to another.
“Nobody has the right to do an average cost and multiply by 750,” he said.
The minister explained that the Federal Executive Council-approved procurement arrangement required the project to be handled section by section, with engineering designs prepared after environmental assessments and soil investigations established the technical requirements for each stretch.
Asked whether a single engineering design covered the entire highway, Umahi said none existed.
“There is no one single design that the 750 kilometres of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is holding. There’s no one single design,” he said.
Umahi said the highway had been conceived as far back as 1955, with its concept gazetted in 2006. However, he maintained that he had found no comprehensive engineering design, subsoil investigation or other detailed technical documents covering the entire route in the ministry’s archives.
The absence of a master design and comprehensive cost estimate raises questions about how the government will establish the highway’s overall financial commitment and assess the final cost of the project.
Although Umahi rejected the N15tn figure, he did not provide an alternative total cost for the 750-kilometre road during the interview.
To defend the cost of the section under construction, the minister compared it with a coastal road project in neighbouring Benin Republic.
He cited a 47-kilometre section of the Lagos-Calabar highway and a 47.47-kilometre coastal road in Benin, which he said cost N1.06tn.
According to Umahi, the Benin project’s three-carriageway configuration cost about N7.5bn per kilometre. He said adjusting the figure for a standard two-lane carriageway produced an estimated cost of about $5.5m, or N7.3bn, per kilometre, using an exchange rate of N1,330 to the dollar.
The Federal Government has presented the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway as one of President Bola Tinubu’s flagship infrastructure projects.
However, questions have persisted over the project’s overall cost, construction process, environmental approvals and completion timeline.
While Umahi maintained that the highway should be assessed section by section, his explanation left unresolved how the government would determine and communicate the total cost of the entire route to Nigerians.
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