Lawyers accuse Umahi of excluding Ondo’s Ilaje communities from coastal highway despite having Nigeria’s longest coastline
By Ishaya Ibrahim
A group of lawyers from Ondo State has called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene in the exclusion of the state’s coastal communities from the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project.
The lawyers, who protested the decision at a press conference in Lagos on Thursday, September 10, 2026, argued that Ondo, which has one of Nigeria’s longest coastlines, stretching about 80 to 100 kilometres, and is among the country’s oil-producing states, should not be excluded from a project specifically conceived as a coastal highway.
Senior lawyer and former Ondo State representative on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) Board, Benson Enikuomehin, who spoke on behalf of the lawyers, said about 66 kilometres of coastal communities in the Ilaje area had allegedly been left out of the highway project by the Federal Ministry of Works under Minister David Umahi.
He listed some of the affected communities as Ilowo, Ilepete, Obe-Enikanoselu, Obe-Rewoye, Ikorigho, Jinrinwo, Awoye, Igho, among others.
He said: “The injustice meted to the Ondo State communities by the Ministry of Works under the supervision of Senator David Umahi along the coast is both intentional and deliberate. Notable communities have completely been taken off the coastal route. These communities fall squarely within the initial coastal route where the coastal highway is meant to pass.”
Enikuomehin alleged that the orchestrated marginalisation of the Ilaje people began when an additional 100 kilometres was added to the initial 700-kilometre route to accommodate Edo State “at all costs” in the coastal highway project. He said all the initial drawings and mappings of the road had now been jettisoned.
Enikuomehin faulted the ministry’s reported explanation that constructing the highway through the area would be too expensive because of its marshy terrain.
He said the explanation by the Works Ministry under Umahi was laughable because similar projects had previously been undertaken by the NDDC in 2010, including the construction of a 40-kilometre road from Ugbonla to Obe-Rebimininu at a cost of N19.4 billion. He questioned why the minister would claim that the federal government could not fund the project when a sub-unit of the federal government had funded similar projects in the past.
The lawyer also maintained that Ondo State’s coastal communities had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s economy through oil production.
He said oil exploration in the Ilaje area dates back to 1958, when Gulf Oil, now Chevron, commenced operations around Otumara and neighbouring areas.
“Is the Ilaje community not part of Nigeria? Is the Ilaje community not part of the coastal state?” he queried.
He questioned the rationale for the proposed alternative alignment through inland areas, which he said would be more expensive than the route through the coastal communities.
Enikuomehin appealed to President Tinubu, whom he credited with the vision for the 800-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, to ensure that the original coastal character of the project was maintained.
He also called on Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, federal ministers from the state, senators and members of the House of Representatives to form a united caucus and engage the Presidency over the matter.
He warned that the lawyers would pursue all available legal avenues if the exclusion was not reversed.
“We will go to court,” the lawyers said, citing Section 42 of the Nigerian Constitution on discrimination and stressing that their position was not a threat but a determination to use peaceful and lawful means to secure what they described as the right of Ondo’s coastal communities to benefit from the highway project.
