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From Romanus Ugwu, Abuja
Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) has chided former leaders of Pan-Yoruba socio-cultural group, Afenifere, Pa Ayo Adebanjo, over his criticism of the construction of a 700km coastal highway stretching from Lagos to eight other states.
TMSG, in a statement issued on Wednesday in Abuja by its Chairman, Jesutega Onokpasa, declared that the criticism is not only ill informed but also in bad faith.
According to the group: “In a most outrageous show of shallow, unresearched and non analytic reasoning, these prowling urchins of evil intentions, queried the productiveness and necessity of the coastal road project with disregard to the poor level of Nigeria’s infrastructural deficit.
“It is laughable to say that despite the frightening figures estimated as the country’s infrastructural deficit, a group of attention seekers (Pa Adebanjo and his men) will describe the award of a project like the Coastal Highway Project, with inherent opportunities in Tourism and Blue Economy as, “unproductive and wasteful.
“The trio of Gboyega Adejumo, Prince Faloke and Pa Ayo Adebanjo, should know that the East-West Road and the Coastal Highway Project are meant to serve two different economic purposes.
“While the former is to serve the economies of Lagos, Shagamu, Ore, Benin, Warri, Ugelli, Aba, and Port Harcourt, the latter is intended to harness and service tourism, and the blue economic investment opportunities of the entire coastal axis of Igbokoda in Ondo State to Warri and the other coastal towns of the Niger Delta region, and Port-Harcourt.
“This is indeed, the kind of foresight, imagination and actions with which President Tinubu birthed the Lekki Free Trade Zone in Lagos State as governor.
“It is no news that the Lekki Free Trade Zone today hosts some of the largest investments in Africa, with multiplier effects on the Nigerian economy and incidentally, the Coastal Highway is planned to pass through the LFTZ.
“And unlike the East West Road which is a project of the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs with 100 per cent financial dependence on the Federal Government, the Coastal Highway Project is an Engineering Procurement Construction and Financing project and (EPCF), under a Public Private partnership arrangement (PPP).
“Hi Tech is meant to finance a lager part of the project, and is expected to recover its cost through tolls and other economic means,” the statement read.
Reacting further, the group claimed that; “when completed, the project will socially and economically integrate the coastal communities, whose oil wealth has sustained the country for decades, but abandoned to constant devastations of coastal erosion, with the mainstream of our non oil economic sectors and opportunities.
“We make bold to assure Nigerians of President Bola Tinubu’s commitment to the full implementation of the coastal projects.
“Our nation is on the right track and all we need to do is to support our President in actualizing his vision for our country,” TMSG argued, stressing that the position of the former Afenifere leader and his group were borne out of hatred not necessarily any act of altruism.
