No need for the Minister to be dancing around the cost – Governor Makinde calls out Umahi over coastal highway
Oyo nation Governor Seyi Makinde has weighed in at the controversy surrounding the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway, criticising the Minister of Works, David Umahi, for what he described as evasiveness over the project’s real cost.
Makinde addressed the problem whilst speakme at a public event, announcing there was “no need for the Minister to be dancing across the value” of the venture. His comments came days after Umahi engaged in a heated on-air alternate with rise up television journalist Rufai Oseni, who had pressed the minister to express the fee according to kilometre of the seven-hundred-kilometre toll road.
for the duration of the interview, Umahi appeared visibly agitated by way of the question, putting forward himself “a professor of practice in engineering” and dismissing Oseni’s inquiry as “simple.” He argued that road expenses couldn’t be calculated uniformly because each kilometre presented unique engineering challenges. Watch video right here
“those are basic questions,” Umahi said in the course of the stay broadcast. “The money is guessed for the challenge, and it will likely be paid in line with the paintings done. The expenses are one of a kind — the next kilometre isn’t the same as the next kilometre. hold quiet and stop pronouncing what you don’t know. I’m a professor on this field. You don’t recognize whatever.”
Oseni, refusing to backtrack, answered, “Minister, it’s very well. keep dignifying your self, and allow the sector understand who you simply are.”
Weighing in at the trade, Governor Makinde sided with the journalist, insisting that Nigerians have a right to recognise the common cost of this sort of huge public venture.
“They requested a minister how a lot the coastal street is, and then you definitely (Umahi) are dancing round and announcing that the next kilometre isn’t like the subsequent kilometre. Then what is the average value?” Makinde asked.
Makinde then in comparison the coastal toll road to street tasks completed below his osn management saying; “whilst we did the Oyo to Iseyin avenue, it was approximately ₦nine.ninety nine billion — nearly ₦10 billion — for about 34 or 35 kilometres. That’s a median of ₦238 million per kilometre,” he stated.
“whilst we did Iseyin to Ogbomoso, that was 76 kilometres at about ₦forty three billion, averaging ₦five hundred million per kilometre. And that task covered two bridges — one over the Ogun River and any other at the Ogbomoso cease.”
Makinde’s remarks have reignited debate over the transparency and cost structure of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway, one in every of Nigeria’s maximum ambitious infrastructure tasks, stretching throughout nine states with two additional spurs leading northward.
The undertaking, awarded to Hitech production agency limited, was once formally flagged off in 2024 by way of President Bola Tinubu, with the primary phase comprising forty seven.47 kilometres of highway built with concrete pavement.
In a declaration issued on the time through Umahi’s media aide, Uchenna Orji, the Minister confused that all contractors dealing with federal street initiatives ought to supply inside record time, caution that delays could not be tolerated and that the government would no longer receive fee versions once mobilisation have been paid.
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