Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway: Much political sabre-rattling about little (1)
By Tiko Okoye
Reactions to the announcement by Works Minister Dave Umahi that the government has commenced the first phase of the construction of the N15 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway were fast and furious by those who particularly have an axe to grind one way or the other with the Presidency.
This columnist has succeeded in crystallising three schools of thought, after watching, reading and listening to a myriad of commentators express their feelings about the project. The first school comprises professional knee-jerk critics and traducers whose first instinct is to say “No” to anything or any measure an elective policy holder they viscerally detest might say or adopt, no matter how specifically or generally beneficial.
Quite interestingly, two of the other three top performers in the 2023 presidential election – along with their fan bases – are avowed members of this school. Members of this school are the fewest in number but are the most vociferous by reason of being media and political influencers. Their delusions of grandeur make them believe that they are the only pebbles on the beach and those the cock regularly crows for early in the morning.
The second school of thought comprises those who make efforts – genuine and hypocritical – to balance their arguments by starting off espousing the benefits of one course of action prior to ending up in the completely opposite direction. They are more in number than the first school but less than the third school.
The third school of thought comprises nonchalant members who good-naturedly have no point of view one way or the other. This is not surprising in a society where the literacy rate and social media uptake are relatively low. The farther away they are from the project site, the greater these members tend to grow in their numbers. An interesting corollary is that the nearer members of this school are to the project site, the more intense their angst and envy-driven negative sentiments fuelled by emotions of being metaphorically dealt a lemon by a strange quirk of fate.
The arguments marshalled against the execution of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway are legion but I’ll discuss those I consider non-pedestrian and most relevant. These include allegations that President Bola Tinubu awarded the ‘mouth-watering’ contract to a friend he started a business relationship with while he was the governor of Lagos State; that his son, Seyi, sits on the Board of a subsidiary of the Chagoury Group; as well as that the project is too pricey and constitutes a misplaced priority at a time of scarcity with so many decrepit Trunk A roads begging for attention.
READ ALSO: Obi insists coastal highway project not priority, tells Umahi allegations of incitement are divisive
Other allegations are that the citizenry are better served by restoring and revitalising comatose educational institutions and healthcare facilities; that it smacks of an abuse of due process; that the attendant demolitions of business properties are throwing thousands of people into the labour market and driving away foreign investors; and that the project doesn’t take cognisance of the environmental and social impact on the geomorphology of the areas involved.
Those who allege a conflict of interest because President Tinubu and his son are very close to the Chagoury family – owners of the constructing firm – are simply engaging in sophistry. What ought to be of paramount interest is whether the bidding process is above board and if the company can perform. As much as I don’t enjoy engaging in whatabouter arguments, I still can’t help it when Nigerian Trumpians who see nothing wrong in whatever their hero says or does are the same ones who gripe and snipe the most whenever a similar incident occurs in Nigeria.
Being his daughter and son-in-law didn’t stop Donald Trump from appointing Ivanka and Jared Kushner, topmost White House aides, and America the MAGA world didn’t implode. They both put up an excellent performance, especially Jared who brokered the landmark “Abraham Accord” that would’ve seen key Arab nations normalise relations with Israel if not for the latter’s invasion of Gaza.
Besides, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Tinubu’s estranged political soulmate and chief conductor of the conflict-of-interest orchestra, has publicly admitted that he co-founded Intels with an Italian businessman while serving full-time as a top management staff of the Nigeria Customs Service and he still actively maintained his business links with the company that won many port concession deals while he served as Nigeria’s No.2 man. Only the gullible and misinformed would fail to wonder why the kettle is dead set on calling the pot black.
What’s of crucial importance is having the proper checks and balances to ensure that everyone complies with regulatory requirements. And this is where hand-picking the Chagoury Group becomes a sticking point, given that there was no public tender as required by the Public Procurement Act (PPA). But the Works Minister has since publicly stated that the PPA permits the government to head-hunt any particular company guaranteed to deliver the best value for money when undisputed expertise in any particular complex sector trumps the need to go through the bureaucratic and often unproductive and time-wasting process of a public tender.
Are investigative journalists too mentally lazy to FactCheck the minister or is it that they believe that sticking with a shaming storyline enables them procure high ratings, as bad news reportedly travels faster, and sells more, than good news? Come on, even among ourselves, do we start fooling around for, say, a mechanic to pick from a pool when our vehicle develops a very complicated defect or do we make a beeline to that mechanic widely renowned for handling such faults? What should matter most is the project performance records of such a company.
The South-South is the proverbial goose that lays the golden eggs. Can any reasonable person deny that such a spectacular project would catalyse rapid economic development on both sides of the road corridor, culminating in heightened industrialisation and ramping up land and property values as well creating job and income opportunities for indigenes of the affected eight states of Lagos, Ondo, Edo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states?
Many of those in the first two schools of thought contend that the government should focus on completing the moribund East-West Road if it harbours a pristine desire to improve the welfare of Niger Deltans, and divert the savings from abandoning the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway to ‘more needy’ areas. For crying out loud, somebodies must be toying with the sensibilities of Niger Deltans to suggest that the road is a misplaced priority. The East-West Road was initiated by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2005. Nearly a quarter of a centenary later, along with trillions of naira in sunk costs, the project still hasn’t been completed, with long stretches of failed portions to boot!
Critics and traducers of the Lagos-Calabar super highway posit that our road networks are so bad that it’s hardly surprising that Nigeria is ranked 131st out of 141 countries by the GlobalEconomy.com on road quality. This constitutes the basis of their demand that the Presidency should immediately end further works on the coastal highway and use the funds to fix our decrepit road infrastructure.
Truth be told, a lot of uncompleted road projects inherited from the Mohammed Buhari administration reportedly left a N6 trillion debt overhang for the incoming Bola Tinubu administration. The sum of N300 billion provided in the 2023 supplementary budget to complete or rehabilitate these cratered roads that seem more like death traps is like a bucketful of water poured into an ocean. But has it ever occurred to these acerbic critics that not only was Rome not be built in a day, but also that during spells of prolonged inflationary spiral, such as we are now facing, rebuilding or rehabilitating a comatose project can be much costlier than a greenfield project?
Umahi has disclosed that there are similar road projects in the offing, such as the Sokoto-Badagry Coastal Highway and the Enugu-Abakiliki-Ogoja-Cameroon super highway, with a spur that will run through Oturkpo to Nasarawa and terminate at Apo in Abuja. These road projects may seem to be a deliberate geopolitical balancing to appease Nigerians across the board.
Given its 1,000-kilometre length, the Sokoto-Badagry highway project is projected to gulp as much as N20 trillion – a whopping N5 trillion above the cost of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road. But the fiery critics and traducers seem to be solely fixated on the latter, with hardly a whimper of negative criticism of others nationwide, especially the priciest of them all – the former! Makes you wonder why, shouldn’t it?
Anyone who claims not to know what’s going on is only deluding himself or herself. Still, interested persons who really can’t read between the lines and through the tea leaves should keep a date with this column next week Wednesday when I’ll bring the curtains down on this two-part serial in a crescendo!
- To be concluded next week
