Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Construction Will Earn Nigeria Carbon Credits, Says FG

Bennett Oghifo

The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has declared that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will not only revolutionise Nigeria’s transport landscape but will also generate carbon credits through its eco-friendly construction and design.

Umahi stated this during a stakeholders meeting in Lagos on the ongoing Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project.

He said, “What we have not known is that this is an evacuation corridor. We are going to be earning carbon credit by the reason of concrete in the road pavement because it has low emission compared to asphalt. We are going to be earning carbon credit by reason of using solar because we are not burning diesel. This is very important. We are going to be having trees all through.”

The Minister explained that the road will ease traffic congestion and integrate multi-modal transport infrastructure.

According to him, ”This project is going to evacuate all the traffic jam out of the town, and that will be a big plus for us. We are not only building for today, we are also building for tomorrow. And, of course, there will be rail line at the middle. The middle is 12 meters gap.”

He said some areas would also have train stations and facilities for future developments. “Anywhere we are rising for, flying, we have already done a piling so that the Minister of Transport can just build on what we are doing. We don’t want a fresh piling which will disturb the foundation of our destiny.”

Addressing the challenges in Section II of the project, Umahi noted the complexity posed by existing industrial infrastructure, noting that “with the Dangote Refinery, one needs about 60 meters clearance for the trucks to go in and out.

“We are now building a flyover that has a span of 60 meters. And then the next span is 41.6 meters, counterbalanced by the next span, and then the rest is 22, 23 meters.

“So we are flying over Dangote’s refinery, we are flying over Dangote’s fertilizer, we are flying over some other conflict points,” he said.

On plans for further expansion, Umahi revealed extensive ongoing and planned projects across several states, saying: “We have started in Cross River, and of course, Akwa Ibom, we are going there to flag off the construction.”

On the Sokoto-Badagry legacy project, the minister explained the challenges and solutions being considered.

He revealed that the third section of Sokoto-Badagry is going to start from Badagry, where there is a very big challenges. “We have rivers of three kilometers across, and that’s a lot of money. We have proposed about four options.”

Umahi emphasised that the four legacy projects are connected and inclusive, explaining that “the third legacy project is the one that is coming from Calabar, going through my own state (Ebonyi), through Enugu, through Benue, through Nasarawa, Kogi, and Abuja.

“The fourth legacy project goes from Abuja to Makurdi, to Keffi, to Akwanga, to Jos, to Bauchi, to Gombe. The four legacy projects are all connected together and no region is left aside.”

He also addressed maintenance and safety on older infrastructure, notably the Independence Bridge.

“Let me assure that the permanent-temporary road work is turning out to be the permanent work. We have been observing it and we have not noticed any settlement.”

The Minister issued a stern warning against misuse of infrastructure. “Let us not allow hawking on our bridges. Let us not allow vehicles to park on our bridges. If we don’t do this, and what happened at Independence Bridge happened again, you have to close the bridge.”

On the issue of illegal dredging near bridges, Umahi said the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has directed that there should be no dredging 10 kilometers in all the bridges nationwide, noting that Julius Berger had warned that should this dredging continue, that bridge was going to collapse.

Lagos State Controller of Works, Olukorede Kesha, lauded the pace and planning of the project stating that Section 1 of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, which is 47 plus 400 kilometers, was awarded some time ago.

Addressing concerns over alignment and property demolition, Kesha said a lot of people complained that there were set alignments but they are not duty bound to follow any alignments.

“It was set aside when it was somebody else that was to do it, but now that it’s the federal government, we have to look at the most feasible, most economical route.”

She disclosed that nearly 700 properties had been marked for demolition at a cost of N18 billion, significantly lower than initial estimates.

“Instead of having to demolish about 1,500 houses, we took the most economic route now we are left with less than 700 houses to be demolished,” she said.

Also speaking at the meeting, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Reality, Ikechukwu Nnamani lauded the economic importance of preserving existing infrastructure.

  He praised the responsiveness of the ministry in protecting critical digital infrastructure.

“All the submarine cables, we have about eight submarine cables serving Nigeria. They are all located along that axis. When we approached the Honourable Minister without spending a kobo or giving anybody any money, the Minister listened to us, assisted us, and helped us,” Nnamani said.

He added that a major power project was also spared during construction.