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From Ndubuisi Orji, Abuja
Former vice president, Atiku Abubakar, has berated the Federal Government over the contract for the construction of the Lagos-Calabar highway, saying it was shrouded in secrecy.
Atiku, in a statement by his media aide, Paul Ibe, yesterday, alleged that the contract for the construction of the 700 kilometre, which has been awarded to Hitech Construction Company, was done without competitive bidding.
He recalled that he contract for the road project was first awarded to the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) at $11.97 billion by Goodluck Jonathan’s administration in 2014, and renegotiated for $11.1billion by Muhammadu Buhari’s administration in 2016.
The former vice president, however, noted that in September 2023, the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, announced that the project had been awarded to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech Construction Company Limited (Hitech) without any record of a competitive bidding or a decision by the Federal Executive Council (FEC).”
According to Atiku, Umahi said project would probably be executed through a Public Private Partnership ( PPP), and that the government would not have to spend any money on it, as the contractor had already secured funding for the project.
The former vice president added: “However, to the shock of many Nigerians, Umahi returned to FEC with a memo in March 2024 seeking the approval of N1.06 trillion that would be paid to Chagoury’s firm for the first phase of the project which is wholly in Lagos.
“This pilot phase was to begin from the edge of Chagoury’s Eko Atlantic City on Ahmadu Bello Way, Victoria Island, and terminate at the Lekki Deep Sea Port, Ibeju-Lekki, a distance of 47.47 kilometres. Till date, the Tinubu administration has refused to reveal how much the project will cost in total. Umahi, who even came on a national television recently, evaded questions about the total cost of the project.
“But, if 47.47 kilometres costs about N1.06 trillion, it means each that kilometre is being built at N22.5 billion or $18 million. For a project that is going to be 700 kilometres, it means that the total cost could be N15.7 trillion or $12.56 billion, which is higher than the previous estimates.
“It is curious that the terms of such an audacious project continue to be shrouded in secrecy. Worse still, it is expected to bring about job losses, like the demolition of Landmark Beach Resort in Oniru, which will lead to the loss of over 12,000 direct and indirect jobs, and over $200 million in investments, according to its management.
“The so-called pilot phase from Eko Atlantic to Lekki Deep Sea Port was initially conceived as a Lagos State Government’s project, but because of its huge cost, coupled with the fact that Lagos State has a huge debt burden, no thanks to Tinubu, the Federal Government is now implementing it under the guise of Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway. This perhaps explains why there are fears that the project will never get to Calabar, and this is the same reason the project is beginning from Lagos and not Calabar.
“Despite not revealing the cost of this entire project, the Tinubu administration is now on the verge of setting up a so-called Renewed Hope Infrastructure Development Fund, a fund targeted at constructing capital projects without the usual budgeting process.
“With a target of N20 trillion or $14.5 billion as seed capital, the fund targets the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway and other projects. The initiative targets pension funds, concessionary loans, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, private sector arms of multilateral development institutions, and bilateral private sector investors, among others, to secure $35 billion annually. The Diaspora funding and equity and endowment funds are also expected to play their part in the plan.”
