Osita Chidoka, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has requested that President Bola Tinubu halt the contentious Lagos-Calabar coastal road project and hold additional public discussions about it.
In order to transport commodities by ship between coastal cities, Chidoka, a former minister of aviation, suggested that the government instead develop Nigeria’s inland waterways and construct tiny seaports around the country’s coastline.
He made this statement on Thursday night when he appeared as a guest on Politics Today on Channels Television. When asked about his plans for the project in light of the uproar it has caused, he said that he would put an end to it if he were president.
“Stop it now and subject it to public conversation because the financiers cannot raise finance for this project except if they use budgetary funds to fund it. Nobody can raise finance if they know they had no competitive bidding,” Chidoka said.
He said that the contract for the coastal road was awarded without following the proper procedures and that the entire process was opaque due to its secrecy.
“If what the minister (Dave Umahi) said is correct, then there is an absolute breach because the first thing that would have happened is that ICRC would have received this, the second thing is that even with the designs done by them and the desire to be able to get funding, neither the IFC, World Bank, European Bank, African Development Bank would fund a project that doesn’t go through competitive bidding.
“Ask any of the financial institutions, where would they get the money from? It was never advertised,” he said.
According to Chidoka, the President intends to pursue other projects as legacy initiatives. He asserts that Tinubu has the authority to reshape the national highway, approve a new National Highway Act to dualize the current roadways, and link them to seaports and airports.
Nigerians have been harshly critical of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road project, with many wondering why such a large-scale undertaking was necessary at a time when the country was relying on borrowing to complete smaller projects.
Opposition leaders Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) are among the project’s most vocal opponents.
The 700 km Lagos-Calabar coastal road is being built by the Federal Government and is being carried out by Hitech Construction Company Ltd.
The House of Representatives earlier on Thursday approved a resolution to look into the bidding procedure used to award the contract for the ₦15 trillion coastal road.
The House claimed that the 2007 Procurement Act had been broken and that the National Assembly had failed to grant certain legal permissions.
