The Minister of Works, David Umahi has flagged off the demolition of buildings on the right of way of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road.
The demolition exercise began at the Mani Chula Beach, Oniru Waterfront on Saturday.
The minister said compensation for owners of the affected structures has been adequately factored into the project and urged those affected to see the greater good of the project.
The demolition process is expected to continue for some days.
The Federal Controller of Works in Lagos State, Korede Keisha, had on Thursday, asked all those whose houses were marked for demolition to come to the Ministry’s Secretariat in Lagos to sort out whatever process was required by the ministry.
She said the demolition squad would move in on Saturday to begin the removal of the marked properties.
Umahi recently said the Lagos-Calabar coastal road construction will cost N4bn per kilometre.
The 700 km Lagos-Calabar coastal road will be constructed for N15 trillion, and a kilometre of the road will cost N4 billion. It is designed to connect Lagos to Cross River, passing through Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, and Akwa Ibom states, before culminating in Cross River.
The project has been heavily criticised by many Nigerians including the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, Peter Obi, who described it as a misplaced priority by the Federal Government. Also, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar had described the project as a fraud, a comment which was refuted by the Presidency.
However, Umahi has dismissed the criticisms and said the comments are a “gross misrepresentation of facts, and figures and a ploy to mislead Nigerians by darkening counsel without knowledge”.
“He (Atiku) doesn’t understand figures. I am going to run figures for him to understand, and he will understand how prudent the administration of President Tinubu has been. He will understand how prudency is taking the centre stage in this administration,” the minister was quoted as saying in a statement by his spokesman, Uchenna Orji.
“The President has once queried me on the cost of on-going projects nationwide. I had to analyse every basic rate of construction materials to arrive at our unit rates. I showed it to Mr. President. He still thinks I should bring down the cost of projects.”
