The Presidency has described the ₦15.6 trillion Lagos-Calabar coastal highway as a transformative project with vast economic benefits.
Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Media and Public Communications, Sunday Dare, defended the initiative during an interview on Television Continental on Thursday, March 13, insisting it would rank among the country’s best infrastructure developments.
“Lagos-Calabar coastal highway is a visionary legacy project with enormous economic potentials,” he said.
His remarks came in response to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had condemned the project as wasteful and corrupt in his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, unveiled last week on his 88th birthday.
Obasanjo also criticised the Tinubu administration for spending ₦21 billion on a new official residence for Vice-President Kashim Shettima, calling it an example of misallocation of resources.
“State resources are captured and appropriated, with a pittance to staff and associates to silence whistleblowers,” he wrote.
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“Typical examples of waste, corruption and misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-President’s official residence built at a cost of ₦21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the office of the Vice-President. What small minds!”
Defending the coastal highway, Dare compared it to the Lekki-Epe corridor, which he said was initially criticised but later spurred economic growth.
“Recall when the Lekki-Epe Corridor that was opened, everyone thought that President Bola Tinubu, who was then Governor of Lagos, didn’t know what he was doing.
“That corridor has opened up in the last 15 years, some of the highest rates of real estate has sprung up. We’ve seen the Dangote refinery, we’ve seen the Free Trade Zone and a lot of developments along that corridor,” he said.
“Lagos-Calabar coastal highway, when completed and fully utilised, will be one of the best projects ever put out by any President of this country.”