Former Cross River State Governor Donald Duke once suggested the Lagos -Calabar Coastal Highway might never sail past Epe.
Last week, the Honourable Minister of Works, Senator Engr. David Umahi, told doubters that the project has already done exactly that — and then some.
Speaking during a recent inspection of the Section 4B of the highway in Ondo State on Wednesday, Umahi said the Renewed Hope flagship infrastructure project of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is progressing steadily across several States.
Adding that it creating thousands of jobs, tightening security along the corridor and opening new opportunities in commerce, agriculture and education.
“So the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is already on sail. And we have sailed past the point my brother Donald Duke talked about,” Umahi said, addressing Duke’s earlier doubt directly.
Progress on paper and on ground
The Minister’s figures paint a picture of simultaneous momentum. Works are advancing in Ogun (28km), Ondo (52km), Calabar (27km) and two sections in Akwa Ibom.
“A first section of roughly 47km, more than 60 percent complete, and a 180km stretch described as the longest section of the entire corridor. Beyond kilometre pegs, Umahi pointed to the human impact.
“Roads are sources of employment. We have counted over one thousand people within this section alone employed by HITECH,” he said, noting that direct and indirect jobs, a security presence along the working corridor, and local vigilante collaboration are among the project’s earlydividends.
He also addressed the project’s financing, describing it as unusually transparent. When Deutsche Bank assessed the first section for funding, he said, the design was found sound and the cost “undervalued” — a prudence he credited for the bond’s oversubscription by 100 million US dollars on the market. “That is our bragging right as Minister of Works”.
A route redrawn, not a favour granted
The Minister did not dodge the project’s more controversial chapter.
Responding to allegations that the highway alignment was altered to benefit private estates, Umahi insisted the route change was driven by engineering and economics, not patronage.
He explained that the original coastline proposal ran into soil deposits as deep as 50 metres, making construction technically difficult and prohibitively expensive, and would have required bridges across three ocean channels of about 3.5 kilometres each.
The revised alignment, he said, followed President Tinubu’s directive to minimise crossings of large water bodies “without compromising quality.”
A demand for constructive critics — and a call to arms
Umahi stopped short of dismissing sceptics outright. “If you want to criticise us, criticize us constructively and offer alternatives,” he said.
But his closing remarks were far less
accommodating. He urged Niger Delta residents to “open their mouth and defend” the project — and the president behind it — and argued that “those who are attacking the coastal highway, they don’t have love for the Niger Delta people.”
He praised HITECH Construction Company for its professionalism and community relations — “no matter what anybody with envy and jealousy says, you are our partners” and echoed President Tinubu’s promise that the road will be completed: “With God on his side, it will be done.”
Two sides of the ledger
For supporters, Umahi’s inspection tour is evidence that the coastal highway is moving from blueprint to reality, with tangible jobs, improved security and a financing story that has attracted international confidence.
For critics, including those who share Duke’s concerns, the minister’s kilometre claims and construction percentages remain government figures awaiting independent verification and questions around the rerouted alignment continue to demand more than assurances.
Both sides, however, agree on one thing: the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway has become a defining test of the current administration’s infrastructure promise.
Whether it reshapes the economic future of the Niger Delta, as Umahi insists, will be settled not in press briefings but on the road itself — and, as the minister put it, that road is already “on sail.”