Our Correspondent
Mr David Umahi, the Minister of Works, has opened discussions with Hitech Construction Company Ltd. on the proposed Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.
Umahi, during a meeting with engineers from the Federal Ministry of Works and the contractor’s team, on Saturday, in Lagos.
He said the project would boost interconnectivity to link the entire nation.
The project, according to him, is huge and ambitious, and it showed the commitment of President Bola Tinubu to the rapid development of the Nigerian state.
Umahi said the president was in a hurry to fix rots in the country, beginning with the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project.
He said the meeting with the contractor was the first and another meeting to be held in a fortnight would be to close deals for kickstarting construction.
The minister hinted that the project, on Public Private Partnership, would have toll-gates
, upon completion. He added that the contractor had already sourced the money to execute the project.
Umahi explained that the contractor would execute the project in phases and the completed portions would be put to use and tolled.
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The proposed highway would link the Lagos-Badagry Expressway super highway. It will connect the proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge, Lekki Deep Sea Port Road.
The highway will further link Ogoja-Ikom to connect five points in Northern Nigeria.
According to him, the road has an initial design length of about 700 kilometres and rail line components. The rail line will run in the middle of the main carriageways.
Umahi said the project would promote tourism, and have industrial clusters including hotels, factories, housing estates and several other facilities.
“It is quite innovative and the giant of Africa is beginning to show her prowess. And, the captain of the ship, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is reviatising this.
“The contractor will build the road on an 11-inch thick concrete road with 20-millimeter reinforcement,” the minister said.
Consultant to Hitech, Nicholas Rizk, said the construction methods for the project “are suitable for countries with large landmass like Nigeria.
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Rizk noted that the project corridor transversed various topographical areas, hence the need to capture all economic and social peculiarities of people along the project alignment.
He said the road would take off from Victoria Island near Eko Atlantic City through the Lekki Coastal Road.
It will traverse the Lekki Free Trade Zone and Dangote Refinery to link Ogun, Ondo, Delta, Edo and Calabar.
“We are connecting nine states with this road. In addition to the integration at the national level for South-West and South-East, South-South and Niger Delta. It also connects with the federal roads going from Lagos to Sokoto.
“From Warri to Kaduna, Port Harcourt to Kano-Maiduguri and from Calabar to Maiduguri.
“Basically, we have this coastal highway that is more or less 10 to 12 kilometres away from the shorelines.
“There is a need to consider the issue of erosion and the sensitive environmental areas,” the consultant said.
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