The Federal Government has announced the realignment of Lagos-Calabar coastal highway.
Minister of Works Dave Umahi disclosed this in Lagos at the 3rd stakeholders meeting of the coastal highway project on Thursday, May 23, 2024.
According to him, the federal government is doing away with the proposed new route of the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway from kilometres 16 to 25 and reverting to the gazetted alignment to save the telecommunications infrastructure and submarine cables, among others at the axis.
“We have three critical infrastructure that are located on one spot. One is the 2Africa submarine cable that cuts across 33 countries connecting about three billion people. That cable landed at Mopo and where it landed, the West African cable systems (WACS) had already been located there about 17 years ago.
“We have a mega IPP which is to provide power to the 2Africa cable and the WACS cable. The power plant is a 50 megawatt power plant expected to support this infrastructure.
“The (new) corridor is passing right on the submarine cable and the other side is on the IPP. You cannot have the submarine cables without power. They will not function. The submarine cable is a critical national security infrastructure. If it is affected, everybody will be affected,” he said.
Umahi added that President Bola Tinubu would flag off the road’s construction on Sunday, May 26.
According to him, “We have fully redesigned section one, which is 47 kilometres, and we can say that we’ve done everything possible to put human face by managing the alignment. We’ve taken hard decisions and we’re happy that our decisions are not harmful.
We have also concluded the design of the road. We are concerned about some houses in this Goshen Estate.”
The minister further said that following the gazetted alignment, and order of the EIA assessment, over 750 houses were expected to be demolished in the old alignment while 450 houses were marked for demolition in the new alignment after thorough assessment of the project along the Okun-Ajah community axis.