2027: South-South votes at risk over Coastal Highway diversion, IYC tells Tinubu

The Ijaw Youth Council IYC) has warned against the diversion of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, stating that President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress APC) would lose massive votes in the January 16 2027 presidential election if the original plan of the project is abandoned.

The President of the IYC, Dr Doubra Okotete Worldwide, in a press conference he addressed at Ijaw House in Yenagoa on Thursday, noted that the governors of Delta, Sheriff Oborevwori, Bayelsa, Senator Douye Diri and Rivers, Siminalayi Fubara, only defected to the APC because of the promise of such a people-oriented legacy project.

According to him, the excuse of financial constraints and difficulty of terrain ascribed to the Minister of Works, David Umahi, is ‘’insulting, provocative and unacceptable to us”.

‘’How can a project be too expensive or its terrain too difficult in the very region that produces over 85% of the nation’s wealth? The South-South produces the oil and gas that funds the entire Federation Account, funds the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, funds the Sokoto-Badagry Highway, funds the Abuja-Kaduna Highway. We therefore refuse to be shortchanged in this one project that is meant to directly benefit us. Our oil must not be used to develop other regions while our region is told that developing our area is too costly, especially after the road has successfully covered the President’s native South-West region. We view this attempt to divert the road into the East-West Road as an afterthought initiative to insult and provoke the South-South and call us names when we rise to the occasion. This argument of impossibility collapses in the face of facts. Governors of the South-South states, even with their lean resources, are undertaking monumental projects across the most difficult swamps and rivers.’’

Okotete warned that if President Tinubu gives his nod for the Minister of Works, David Umahi, to follow through with his plan to divert the road project from Ondo and merge it with the already dilapidated East-West Road, then he should be ready to lose his wide acceptance and goodwill in the entire South-South, as there would be nothing left for the people to support in an administration that seeks votes but takes away roads meant for the people.

Okotete, who pointed to landmark road projects being undertaken by the Rivers and Bayelsa State governments to puncture the argument of difficult terrain amplified recently by former governor of Cross River State, Donald Duku, implored President Tinubu to address the matter with the needed urgency it deserves to prove that he is indeed President of Nigeria and not Asiwaju of Lagos or the Jagaban of the West.

‘’We assure Mr President and the administration that politically, this diversion, if allowed to see the light of day, is suicidal for the President and the ruling party’s re-election bid in the South-South, even as January 2027 draws near’’, he added.