By Bayo Wahab

A businessman, Otunba Tolani Oladipo, has said the N15.6tn Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, being built by Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech Construction Limited, will help President Bola Tinubu to achieve his vision of making Nigeria a trillion-dollar economy by 2030.

In a statement on Sunday, Tolani responded to former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s critique of the project. In his recent memoir, ‘Nigeria: Past and Future,’ Obasanjo said the highway, conceived more than 50 years ago, was wasteful and corrupt.

The former president’s critique has attracted a deluge of criticisms from The Presidency and Ohanaeze Ndigbo, among others, who felt the project is a legacy project that would expand the nation’s economy and give jobs to many Nigerians.

Tolani joined the fray against Obasanjo and said the highway would be a blessing rather than a course, explaining, “By the time it is finished, this highway will shorten travel time between the Southwest and South-South by more than 35%, and is projected to add $45 billion to Nigeria’s economy in its first five years.”

He pointed out that Lagos State was the immediate beneficiary, having already gained $2 billion in Gross Domestic Product.

Saying infrastructure was the backbone of GDP and development, Tolani emphasised that Lagos’ $259 billion economy, second to Cairo in Egypt, was on the back of its network of socio-economic facilities, explaining that it made the nation’s commercial capital city account for 55 per cent the country’s GDP despite being 15 per cent of Nigeria’s population.

He stated, “Lagos’ infrastructure is its mainstay. Eko Atlantic City alone is worth $6 billion conservatively and has saved Victoria Island, Ikoyi, and Lekki from the onslaught of the Atlantic Ocean and much annual flooding.

“Now, fifty years after it was conceived, the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is finally becoming a reality. And already it has added over $2 billion to Lagos State’s GDP.

“If you look at the infrastructure that has made parts of Lagos one of the most expensive real estates on earth, they have the imprimatur of Hitech Construction Company on it.”

The business tycoon said while he understood the former president’s misgivings about the project, he noted that not all his fears about Nigeria would materialise.




https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/03/businessman-faults-obasanjos-comment-on-lagos-calabar-road-project/