After demolishing landmark beach, Works Minister Dave Umahi says the Lagos-Calabar coastal highway will revert to the gazetted alignment between kilometres 16 and 25.
Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, has announced that the Federal government will do away with the proposed new route of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway from kilometres 16 to 25 of the 47-kilometre highway, and revert to the gazetted alignment.
Meanwhile, the announcement comes after the telecommunication companies warned the government of the possibility of network outage in the country if the diversion is not reconsidered.
Umahi disclosed this in Lagos at the 3rd stakeholders meeting of the coastal highway project on Thursday.
During a two-hour session that included presentations and a question and answer segment, Umahi invited representatives of
telecommunications companies affected by the ongoing project,
residents of Okun Ajah community, as well as other stakeholders, to
make a case for why the new alignment should be altered.
He revealed that reverting to the old alignment would see 750 houses demolished (though illegally built he said), while the new alignment will lead to the demolition of 490 houses. According to him it was a tough decision either way. He urged those for and against to speak.
Highlighting the concerns of MTN, 2Africa and other telecoms
companies was the Group CEO of Machine and Equipment Consulting of Africa.
“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.
