“700 kilometers of concrete ambition, a ₦15-trillion promise of connectivity, and the crown jewel of a government determined to prove that it could build at scale. Yet every kilometer of its progress has also mapped the fault lines of the Nigerian state.”

By
Prof. MarkAnthony Nze
Investigative Journalist | Public Intellectual | Global Governance Analyst | Health & Social Care Expert | International Business/Immigration Law Professional |Strategic & Management Economist

 

Executive Summary

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway—a 700-kilometre corridor projected to cost roughly ₦15 trillion ($11 billion)—is the most ambitious public-works project in Nigeria’s modern history. Conceived as a symbol of national renewal, it has instead revealed the structural weaknesses that haunt Nigerian governance: opaque procurement, politicized decision-making, ecological neglect, and a recurring belief that speed can substitute for scrutiny.

The twelve-part investigation, “Dave Umahi and the Highway of Lies,” traced the project from its televised debut to the fine print of its financing. It found that the Ministry of Works, led by Engr. Dave Umahi, awarded the flagship contract to Hitech Construction Co. Ltd under restrictive tendering—a legal exemption meant for rare technical monopolies but now used as default practice. Section 1 of the road, only 47 kilometers long, carries a price tag of ₦1.068 trillion, implying an average ₦21–23 billion per kilometer, among the highest road-construction costs in Africa.

Financing is equally opaque. A $747-million Deutsche Bank-led loan, guaranteed by the federal treasury, blurs the boundary between private contractor debt and sovereign liability. Repayment terms remain undisclosed, and no comprehensive cost–benefit analysis or public audit has been released. Parliament and oversight agencies acknowledge partial information; accountability disperses across institutions.

Human and environmental costs mount beneath the concrete. In Lagos’s Okun-Ajah corridor, demolitions displaced more than 12 000 people. Compensation processes were inconsistent, often undocumented, and excluded informal residents. Across the coast, mangrove ecosystems—the country’s natural flood barrier—are being buried faster than they can regenerate. The legally required Environmental Impact Assessment remains incomplete and unpublished for several sections.

Minister Umahi’s public posture compounds the opacity. In interviews he has dismissed critics as ignorant or subversive, even threatening to involve EFCC, DSS, and Interpol against dissenting investors. Such rhetoric recasts civil disputes as security matters, silencing dialogue and discouraging diaspora participation. The result is an atmosphere of fear where questioning cost becomes unpatriotic.

Behind the politics stands a longer economic alliance: the Chagoury Group, parent company of Hitech, whose projects—from Banana Island to Eko Atlantic—have defined Lagos’s private shoreline for three decades. The Coastal Highway extends that nexus from state to nation, fusing public infrastructure with private legacy.

The investigation concludes that the Coastal Highway is less an engineering enterprise than a governance mirror. It reflects a system where output eclipses oversight, where concrete becomes ideology, and where modernization is performed rather than institutionalized.

True progress now depends on a national reckoning: publication of full cost data and loan terms; independent environmental and social audits; and an open digital registry of all federal contracts. Only by replacing secrecy with structure can Nigeria transform the highway from symbol to system.

Until then, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will remain a triumph of motion over meaning—proof that in Nigeria, the road to progress still runs faster than the truth.

 

Part 1: The Interview That Cracked the Concrete

Nine minutes on live TV that shattered a ₦15-trillion illusion.

The Interview That Cracked the Concrete

At exactly 8:00 a.m. on a humid Lagos morning, the broadcast lights of Arise TV’s Morning Show flared to life. Sitting across from the anchor, Rufai Oseni, was Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Engr. Dave Umahi—former governor, structural engineer, and the man now presiding over one of the most ambitious and controversial public works in the country’s history: the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, a project officially valued at ₦15 trillion and stretching nearly 700 kilometers across Nigeria’s southern shoreline.

What was meant to be a routine ministerial update quickly morphed into a national spectacle. Within nine minutes, Umahi’s composure splintered, Oseni’s persistence stiffened, and the Nigerian public got a rare, unfiltered look into how the government communicates—when pressed on transparency, cost, and accountability.

A Clash on Live Television

The confrontation began with what seemed like playful banter. Oseni joked about allowing himself a “right of reply,” hinting that the minister had once reported him to President Tinubu after a previous interview. Umahi smiled stiffly. The cordiality ended there.

What followed was less an interview than an unmasking. Umahi launched into a monologue, dominating airtime for nearly ten minutes. His tone oscillated between defensiveness and derision. At one point, he accused the interviewer of “darkening counsel without knowledge,” borrowing biblical phrasing to dismiss questions about the legality of demolitions and the cost of the coastal road.

When Oseni finally interjected to ask the question on every viewer’s mind—“What is the cost per kilometer of this project?”—Umahi bristled.
“You don’t know what you’re speaking,” he retorted, waving off the inquiry.

The cost-per-kilometer debate is not trivial: it sits at the heart of public accountability for a ₦15-trillion megaproject. But Umahi dismissed the notion entirely, saying it was “impossible” to quote a figure since “each kilometer differs by soil and terrain.” He likened the question to “naming a child still in the mother’s belly.”

That analogy went viral within hours. For many Nigerians, it symbolized how government officials often treat public information as a state secret—even when the public foots the bill.

 

Cracks in the Narrative

Beneath the rhetorical theatrics, Umahi’s words carried significant admissions—some contradicting earlier statements made by his ministry.

He acknowledged that multiple court cases were pending over the project, including one brought by what he described as “diaspora investors.” That was a veiled reference to Winhomes Global Services Ltd, a property developer whose estate in Okun-Ajah, Lagos, was partially demolished in October 2024 to make way for the highway.

Previously, the Ministry of Works had downplayed or denied the existence of any active court injunctions. On Arise TV, Umahi reversed course. “Yes, there are still cases in court,” he said, referring to a dismissed suit by 39 claimants and another ongoing case at the Federal High Court. This was a public admission under broadcast scrutiny that active litigation exists—a fact the government had sidestepped for months.

He went further. “I wanted EFCC, DSS, Police, even Interpol to come into the case,” he said, referring to the investors who had challenged the demolitions. The remark stunned viewers. Instead of addressing the civil questions—ownership, compensation, legal notice—Umahi appeared to criminalize the complainants themselves. It was a chilling signal that dissent could be treated as disloyalty.

The Missing Figures

While Umahi dodged Oseni’s request for the cost per kilometer, the government’s own documents offer partial clarity.

• Section 1 (Lagos) — awarded to Hitech Construction Ltd under a “restrictive tendering” process — is valued at ₦1.068 trillion for approximately 47.47 kilometers.
  That implies a cost of roughly ₦22.5 billion per kilometer.
• Section 2 (Ogun and Ondo) — also under Hitech — is valued at about ₦1.6 trillion.
• Sections 3A and 3B (Akwa Ibom and Cross River) — collectively about ₦1.33 trillion.

Even allowing for variations in soil conditions, the figures are eye-watering. By comparison, similar large-scale coastal or expressway projects in Africa—such as Kenya’s Mombasa Highway or Ghana’s Tema Motorway expansion—average between ₦4–₦8 billion per kilometer.

Asked directly why Nigerians should not know their own project’s metrics, Umahi insisted, “You cannot talk about cost per kilometer… it is an average.” Yet his ministry has never published even that “average.” The opacity stands in sharp contrast to President Tinubu’s pledge of “open governance” and deepens suspicion that the figures are politically managed.

The Deutsche Bank Connection

The first phase of the highway is financed partly through a $747-million loan arranged by Deutsche Bank and a syndicate of foreign lenders.
The loan falls under what the ministry calls an EPC+F model—Engineering, Procurement, Construction plus Financing—meaning the contractor (Hitech) not only builds but helps finance the work, to be repaid over time by the federal government.

Critics, including procurement experts and former infrastructure officials, warn that such arrangements blur accountability lines. Without full disclosure of loan covenants, repayment schedules, or sovereign guarantees, it becomes impossible for the public to measure Nigeria’s true financial exposure.

“It’s a clever way to bypass legislative scrutiny,” one senior official at the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) said anonymously. “Restrictive tendering, EPC financing, and undisclosed repayment terms—these are classic hallmarks of opaque infrastructure deals.”

From Ebonyi to Abuja: Umahi’s Style of Power

Dave Umahi’s public persona is a blend of technocratic confidence and combative pride. As governor of Ebonyi State (2015–2023), he styled himself as a “builder-governor,” paving roads with concrete instead of asphalt and boasting of “unprecedented durability.” Supporters credit him with expanding infrastructure; detractors describe him as imperious and intolerant of criticism.

That same temperament was on full display during the Arise TV interview. “You are too small for me to report to the President,” he sneered when Oseni accused him of having done just that during the project’s commissioning. “I’m a professor in this field—you don’t understand anything,” he added, moments later.

When Oseni pressed on procurement transparency, Umahi cut him off repeatedly. “Keep quiet,” the minister said, at one point raising his voice. The exchange has since been replayed millions of times on social media—a microcosm of the governing psychology of impunity.

“He speaks like a man who believes he is unanswerable,” said a senior civil engineer familiar with the ministry. “It’s the tone of command, not of service.”

The ₦85-Billion Question

At the center of the Lagos controversy lies the Winhomes Global Services estate, a high-end residential development in Okun-Ajah built partly with diaspora capital. The developers claim that the highway’s realignment between chainage 16+500 and 17+500 sliced through their 18.8-hectare estate, destroying as many as 400 plots valued at over ₦85 billion (roughly $250 million).

They say no statutory notice was served, no compensation paid, and no transparent valuation conducted.
Umahi insists compensation has been made where due—and that even “shanties” were paid for on President Tinubu’s humanitarian directive. Yet, independent verification from affected residents shows a patchwork of payments and confusion over valuation criteria.

Court filings (Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1063/25) reveal that Winhomes has asked the Federal High Court to restrain further demolitions and to order damages for unlawful acquisition. The government, for its part, maintains that “no injunction has been issued stopping work.”

This legal limbo, confirmed inadvertently by Umahi’s own televised remarks, emphasizes how construction continues amid unresolved litigation—an extraordinary situation for a project of such scale.

Anatomy of Avoidance

What makes the Arise TV confrontation historically significant is not just Umahi’s temperament but the information gaps it inadvertently exposed.
In under ten minutes, the minister confirmed that:

1. Active court cases exist—contradicting earlier denials.
2. No cost breakdown is publicly available, not even averages.
3. Security agencies were considered as tools against civil litigants.
4. No finalized design or soil report exists for new sections the President has announced.

Each of these revelations points to systemic dysfunction: construction proceeding faster than documentation, executive orders outrunning due process, and an entrenched aversion to public scrutiny.

For journalists and civil society groups, that nine-minute exchange was more illuminating than any official statement the ministry has issued in the past year.

The Performance of Power

Political communication experts describe Umahi’s style as “performative defiance”—a deliberate projection of authority meant to overwhelm scrutiny.
Dr. Amina Yusuf, a governance scholar at Ahmadu Bello University, puts it this way:

“When ministers resort to mockery and intimidation, it’s a way of signaling to their principal that they can defend the administration’s image aggressively. But in doing so, they often reveal the fragility of that image.”

Indeed, Umahi’s aggressive demeanor may have backfired. Within hours of the interview, social media was flooded with side-by-side clips of Oseni’s calm questioning and Umahi’s interruptions. Civil groups renewed demands for disclosure of the project’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and loan documents.

Even lawmakers began to quietly ask for briefings. “We can’t keep defending what we don’t know,” one National Assembly member admitted off record.

A Mirror for the Administration

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway is the signature infrastructure promise of the Tinubu administration—a corridor meant to transform logistics, tourism, and regional trade. But Umahi’s handling of its public narrative has turned it into a test of governance credibility.

Transparency advocates see a pattern: megaprojects sold through patriotic rhetoric but managed through opacity. The government insists on progress; citizens demand proof. Between them lies a widening gulf of mistrust.

In that sense, the Arise TV interview was not a personal clash; it was a symbolic collision between two visions of governance—one anchored in authority, the other in accountability.

After the Cameras Went Dark

As the interview ended, Umahi smiled tersely, adjusted his microphone, and muttered that Rufai “should come to learn how to talk.” The minister’s team later framed the incident as a case of “media provocation.” But the footage told another story—a senior public officer, confronted by questions of transparency, retreating into insult and obfuscation.

In the days that followed, journalists unearthed new details about financing, compensation gaps, and environmental omissions. The moment on air had opened a fissure that no amount of public relations could seal.

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway remains a work in progress—physically and politically. Bulldozers roll, lawsuits multiply, and the ₦15-trillion question of “who truly benefits” remains unanswered.

But history may remember that it was not a court ruling, nor a budget audit, that first cracked open the edifice of secrecy. It was a live morning show—a journalist’s persistence, a minister’s temper, and nine minutes of truth breaking through concrete.

 

Part 2: Demolition by Decree

Where bulldozers speak louder than the law — and citizens become collateral for concrete.

Demolition by Decree

When the bulldozers came to Okun-Ajah, they did not come quietly.
Residents remember the sound before the sight — a low mechanical growl rolling over the Atlantic breeze, followed by dust, soldiers, and confusion. By sunset, concrete fences, electric gates, and rows of partly built homes had become debris.

Among the ruins lay the signboard of Winhomes Global Services Estate, a development marketed to diaspora Nigerians as a model of modern real estate — paved internal roads, drainage, and sea-view plots worth tens of millions each. For years, it stood as a symbol of private investment confidence. In October 2024, it became a casualty of what government officials call “national progress.”

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, valued at an estimated ₦15 trillion, had arrived.

A Road with a Human Cost

The Federal Ministry of Works insists that the demolitions along the 47.47-kilometre Section 1 of the highway — valued at ₦1.068 trillion — were “lawful” and “compensated.”
Yet interviews with affected residents, estate developers, and civil-rights observers reveal a pattern of inconsistent notice, disputed compensation, and opaque decision-making.

At chainage 16+500 to 17+500, the newly adjusted route slices directly through about 18.8 hectares of the Winhomes estate. According to the company’s filings in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1063/25, roughly 400 plots were impacted, representing an estimated loss of ₦85 billion — about $250 million in invested value.

Developers say they were blindsided. “We had all our approvals — Certificate of Occupancy, Governor’s Consent, Survey Plan,” said one investor in a recorded statement filed with the court. “Then one morning, bulldozers entered without prior demolition notice.”

By contrast, the Ministry of Works maintains that proper evaluation and payment were done for “eligible” properties and that even “shanties” received ex gratia payments “on the President’s humanitarian directive.” Minister Dave Umahi told Arise TV, “By law, we don’t pay for shanties. But the President said we should pay, to alleviate their problems.”

That humanitarian tone, however, sits awkwardly beside reports from field visits showing entire rows of structures flattened before any compensation lists were finalized.

 

The Official Process — and Its Shortcuts

Under Nigerian law, property acquisition for public infrastructure must pass through statutory notice, valuation, and compensation approval phases. The Land Use Act (1978) and Federal Highways Act require that affected owners receive formal notice, an opportunity to contest valuation, and payment before possession.

But internal ministry correspondences seen by civil-society monitors show that construction began before full valuation was complete. One source close to the Lagos field office described “pressure to move earth before politics moved in.”

Satellite imagery from August to November 2024 confirms that construction equipment had advanced deep into Okun-Ajah months before the last compensation assessment teams were deployed.

Even within government, the timeline raised eyebrows. A senior official in the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) — speaking anonymously — described the sequence as “policy reversed into urgency.”

“In theory, valuation informs alignment,” the official said. “Here, alignment dictated valuation. Once bulldozers moved, compensation became an afterthought.”

Route Realignment or Power Realignment?

One of the most disputed mysteries is why the route changed at all.
The original coastal design, developed under earlier administrations, reportedly skirted the Winhomes area by about a kilometer. Sometime between mid-2023 and early 2024, the alignment was redrawn — now cutting through the estate’s center.

Minister Umahi has described the shift as an engineering necessity, citing soil studies and “right-of-way optimization.” But court filings and technical reviews by independent engineers suggest the realignment coincided suspiciously with adjacent parcels of undeveloped land linked to politically connected developers.

“There’s no public record of the revised route being gazetted,” said an infrastructure lawyer following the case. “If it wasn’t gazetted, then there’s no lawful basis for the demolitions, period.”

Government survey data that should have accompanied the new alignment has yet to be published on the Federal Ministry of Works website. Even the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the adjusted section remains unavailable to the public — a breach of the Environmental Impact Assessment Act (1992), which mandates publication before construction.

Inside the Winhomes Lawsuit

On July 18, 2025, Winhomes Global Services Ltd filed its case at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, naming as defendants:

• The Attorney-General of the Federation,
• The Minister of Works (Dave Umahi),
• Hitech Construction Company Ltd,
• The Controller of Works, Lagos, and
• Lagos State Government.

The plaintiffs are seeking injunctive relief to halt further demolition and a declaration that the acquisitions and destruction of property were unlawful and unconstitutional. The case has drawn attention not just for its financial scale but for its political undertones: Winhomes’ investors include Nigerians in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States, many of whom pooled diaspora funds to develop the estate.

In their filings, the plaintiffs allege that demolition teams were accompanied by armed soldiers and police, an intimidation tactic that blurred the line between civil works and coercion. The court, while urging parties to maintain status quo, has not yet issued a definitive injunction.

That legal ambiguity has allowed construction to continue — an ongoing process even as court documents, aerial footage, and eyewitness accounts pile up.

Government’s Justification

Minister Umahi insists that the project followed due process and that compensation is “ongoing.”
At a post-interview briefing, he described the criticisms as “political blackmail” and accused the Winhomes claimants of exaggerating losses. “Some people are just using the name ‘diaspora investors’ to attract sympathy,” he said. “We will deal with genuine investors, not opportunists.”

He reiterated that 39 claimants whose properties were “properly registered” had already been compensated and that their lawsuit was dismissed. But he did not address why other cases remain pending or why his ministry began clearing land in disputed zones.

Critics say this blend of partial acknowledgment and broad dismissal has become characteristic of the administration’s infrastructure narrative — admitting fragments of truth while obscuring systemic issues.

Field of Dust and Doubt

Beyond Okun-Ajah, similar stories echo across Lekki, Ibeju, and Ogombo, where smaller landholders claim inadequate notice or arbitrary valuation. Some received compensation cheques as low as ₦2 million for homes valued at over ₦20 million by independent assessors. Others received none.

A community organizer, Mrs. Taiwo Ogunleye, described watching her mother’s bungalow crumble. “We didn’t even have time to remove the doors,” she said. “They told us the land belongs to government now. How? We paid taxes. We have receipts.”

For many, the absence of clear demarcation — no publicly displayed right-of-way maps, no confirmed kilometer-by-kilometer costing — fuels suspicion that demolitions serve not just the highway but speculative private redevelopment.

The Numbers Beneath the Dust

According to Ministry data and corroborated budget estimates:

• Total Project Length: ~700 km
• Total Estimated Cost: ₦15 trillion (≈ $11 billion)
• Section 1 (Lagos): ₦1.068 trillion / 47.47 km
• Section 2 (Ogun–Ondo): ₦1.6 trillion
• Sections 3A–3B (Akwa Ibom–Cross River): ₦1.33 trillion combined
• Financing: $747-million syndicated loan via Deutsche Bank
• Key Contractor:Hitech Construction Company Ltd (Chagoury Group)

If these figures hold, Lagos Section 1 alone costs ₦22–23 billion per kilometer—five times higher than comparable coastal expressways in Ghana or Kenya. That arithmetic sharpens the moral question: how can a project so costly be so cavalier with people’s homes?

The Silence of Oversight

Attempts by civil-society organizations to obtain project documentation under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) have largely failed. The Federal Ministry of Works has not released the compensation register, valuation reports, or the realignment survey plans.
Meanwhile, the National Assembly has yet to hold public hearings, despite growing public concern.

Policy observers note that the demolition pattern reveals a familiar cycle of executive overreach. Once a project is elevated to “presidential flagship” status, the normal checks of consultation and legislative scrutiny tend to vanish. In such moments, bulldozers cease to be mere machinery — they become symbols of loyalty, proof of obedience to power rather than adherence to process.

 

 

 

Power, Propaganda, and Pain

In televised statements, Umahi portrays himself as a reformer besieged by cynics. “We are building Nigeria’s future,” he told one interviewer. “Some noise will happen, but progress requires sacrifice.”

For displaced homeowners, the word sacrifice stings. “They call it sacrifice because it’s not their house,” said one resident, standing by a broken fence line. “If this is progress, then it’s progress built on tears.”

Observers note that Umahi’s framing — casting critics as obstacles and victims as saboteurs — mirrors a broader administrative tactic: equating dissent with disloyalty. By turning legitimate questions about valuation and notice into accusations of “political blackmail,” the ministry effectively shifts moral burden from government to citizen.

Democracy vs. Bulldozer Politics

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway was conceived as an emblem of modern Nigeria — an engineering artery uniting states, unlocking trade, and symbolizing renewal. Instead, its early phases have become a case study in democratic deficit.

From restrictive procurement to unverified compensation, from route secrecy to legal intimidation, each layer of the project reveals a state apparatus more comfortable with decree than dialogue.

“The project’s ambition is national,” said a former Works Ministry director. “But its execution feels feudal — driven by personalities, not procedures.”

The Rubble Speaks

Back in Okun-Ajah, weeds have begun to sprout between broken blocks. Some residents have rebuilt further inland; others wait for compensation that may never come. The skeletal frames of half-finished homes jut into the skyline like open wounds.

That dream now lies in court papers and satellite archives. Whether justice or restoration comes first is uncertain. What is certain is that in the government’s rush to pour concrete, it has left a trail of crushed trust.

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway may one day link cities and boost commerce. But for hundreds of displaced families, it already links progress with loss, power with impunity, and nation-building with personal ruin.

And for Minister Dave Umahi, the man who defends it all as necessary “development,” each kilometer built under controversy deepens the metaphor at the heart of this series: a highway paved with secrecy, stretching endlessly through the ruins of accountability.

 

Part 3: The ₦85 Billion Diaspora Dispute

How a $250 million housing dream became the most dangerous court case in Nigeria’s coastal project.

The Storm After the Bulldozers

When Winhomes Global Services Ltd went to court in mid-2025, its directors were not just suing the Nigerian government; they were suing for the survival of a belief — that diaspora investment could still be safe at home.

Their estate in Okun-Ajah, once a beacon of upward mobility and offshore confidence, now looked like a battlefield. Within its 18.8 hectares lay rows of shattered plots — about 400 in all, valued collectively at ₦85 billion. Most were sold to Nigerians abroad through mortgage syndicates and digital property fairs promising “secure titles” and “government-approved development.”

Then came the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, a 700-kilometre mega-project valued at ₦15 trillion. The road’s realignment between chainage 16+500 and 17+500 cut directly through the estate. By October 2024, bulldozers, escorted by soldiers and police, had torn through reinforced foundations and perimeter fences.

What had begun as an infrastructure project became an international investment crisis.

The Lawsuit That Shook the Coast

On July 18, 2025, Winhomes filed Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1063/25 at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi. The defendants list read like a who’s-who of federal authority:

• Attorney-General of the Federation
• Minister of Works, Engr. Dave Umahi
• Hitech Construction Company Ltd (the Chagoury-owned contractor)
• Controller of Works, Lagos
• Lagos State Government

The plaintiffs asked for three things: an injunction halting further demolition, a declaration that their land had been unlawfully taken, and damages for what they called “arbitrary destruction of private investment.”

In their affidavit, Winhomes presented survey plans, Certificates of Occupancy, Governor’s Consent letters, and title verifications issued years before construction began. They claimed no statutory notice was served, no valuation exercise conducted, and no compensation paid.

The government’s defense was blunt. According to the Ministry of Works, the land in question fell within the “approved right-of-way,” and any development thereon was “illegal encroachment.” They accused the developers of misleading diaspora buyers and “using the term ‘diaspora investors’ to gain public sympathy.”

Inside the ₦85 Billion Claim

To understand the stakes, one must follow the numbers.

Each of the roughly 400 plots averaged between ₦180 million and ₦250 million, depending on proximity to the shoreline. Documents shared with investors show aggregate valuation losses of about $250 million — capital partly sourced from Nigerians in the UK, US, and Canada under structured co-investment schemes.

The plaintiffs argue that beyond land value, demolition destroyed public infrastructure they financed: internal roads, drainage, and a 5 MVA power substation. Their engineers estimated replacement cost at ₦12 billion.

At the core of their claim lies trust capital — the intangible currency of the diaspora. “They sold us patriotism,” said one investor by phone from London. “We brought money home. Now they tell us we don’t exist.”

Umahi’s Counteroffensive

Minister Dave Umahi has treated the dispute less as a civil case than as a public-relations battlefield. On television he accused the claimants of exaggeration and hinted at criminal investigation.

“I had wanted EFCC, DSS, Police, even Interpol to come into the case,” he declared during his Arise TV interview, implying that the investors’ claims might be fraudulent. To observers, the remark converted a commercial disagreement into a state-security issue.

Legal analysts say such rhetoric could prejudice judicial process. “When the executive brands litigants as criminals, it chills due process,” said a constitutional lawyer. “It signals to investors that justice is conditional on political loyalty.”

A Clash of Documents

Court filings seen by reporters show a deep divergence in narrative:

Issue	Winhomes Claim	Government Response
Ownership	Land acquired legally with C of O & Governor’s Consent	Developers encroached on federal alignment
Notice	No demolition or acquisition notice served	Verbal and community notices given
Compensation	None paid	“Ongoing evaluation”
Security Deployment	Armed presence during demolition	“Standard site protection”

The Ministry of Works insists that 39 earlier claimants—owners of “properly registered properties”—had already been evaluated and compensated, and that their own case was dismissed by court. Winhomes counters that its own parcels were distinct and never assessed.

Until judgment, both realities coexist: the government’s narrative of order and the investors’ chronicle of dispossession.

The Global Ripples

The dispute quickly travelled beyond Lagos. Diaspora associations in the United Kingdom, Canada, and the United States petitioned Nigeria’s embassies, warning that such incidents “erode confidence in repatriation of funds.”

Foreign business councils privately expressed concern that the government’s handling of property rights under the ₦15-trillion highway could deter infrastructure financing.

An internal memo from a West-African investment bank, seen by this reporter, described the episode as a “material sovereign-risk signal,” noting that Deutsche Bank’s $747 million loan to the same project could become “politically exposed capital” if litigation expands.

The symbolism was painful: a project sold as a magnet for foreign investment now repelling it through controversy.

The Ministry’s Line of Defense

Within the Ministry of Works, officials close ranks around their minister. They argue that the Lagos–Calabar project’s engineering complexity justifies route adjustments and that “relocation costs” for affected estates have been budgeted.

One director explained, “The alignment passes through swampy terrain; soil reports forced realignment.” When asked for documentation, he cited confidentiality until project completion.

Yet professional bodies are unconvinced. The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers says it was never formally engaged to supervise compensation. The Environmental Protection Agency reports no publicly filed EIA addendum for the revised section.

“Without EIA disclosure and gazetting, every demolition stands on shaky legal ground,” said an environmental lawyer. “Even if engineering demanded it, the process demanded transparency.”

Diaspora Dreams, Bureaucratic Nightmares

For many investors, the lawsuit is not just about restitution; it is a referendum on whether Nigeria can still attract diaspora capital.

Between 2020 and 2024, remittances from Nigerians abroad averaged $20 billion annually—almost the size of the federal budget for works and housing combined. Much of it goes into real estate. The Winhomes project was marketed as a model: pay abroad, build at home, own a piece of the future.

Now, brokers say inquiries have plummeted. “People are scared,” said, a London-based realtor. “They ask, ‘If the government can demolish a gated estate, what chance do I have?’ ”

The chilling effect is measurable. Real-estate trade groups estimate a 30 percent drop in diaspora-driven land purchases in Lagos and Ogun since late 2024.

The ₦15 Trillion Shadow

Behind the courtroom drama looms the sheer scale of the highway itself.

• Total project value: ₦15 trillion
• Section 1 (Lagos): ₦1.068 trillion
• Section 2 (Ogun–Ondo): ₦1.6 trillion
• Sections 3A/B (Akwa Ibom & Cross River): ₦1.33 trillion
• Financing: $747 million Deutsche Bank-led loan

Analysts note that compensation for all affected persons in Section 1 amounts to less than 1 percent of total project cost. “It’s paradoxical,” said infrastructure economist Tunde Balogun. “We allocate trillions for concrete but pennies for citizens.”

Umahi insists compensation continues and that “genuine claimants will be settled.” But as the case drags on, bulldozers remain active, sealing the road’s alignment with fresh layers of concrete—evidence hardened faster than justice.

Inside the Courtroom

Proceedings at the Federal High Court have been tense.
At the last hearing, Winhomes’ counsel submitted drone footage and valuation reports; government lawyers objected, calling them “inadmissible.” The presiding judge urged restraint and directed both sides to maintain status quo.

No restraining injunction has yet been granted — a legal vacuum that effectively favors continued construction. “In practice, status quo means the bulldozers stay,” observed one litigation journalist.

Meanwhile, community members travel to the court gallery each session, clutching property papers already rendered meaningless by gravel and asphalt.

Public Perception and Political Fallout

Public sympathy leans heavily toward the investors. Social media clips of demolished homes under the caption #HighwayOfLies circulate daily. Commentators frame the saga as proof that elite contracts outweigh citizen rights.

Opposition lawmakers have begun drafting a motion for an investigative hearing on “compensation irregularities under the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway.” But insiders doubt it will move beyond committee stage; Hitech’s political ties run deep, and Umahi remains one of the administration’s most vocal technocrats.

“The optics are terrible,” said a former finance ministry adviser. “Nigeria can’t court diaspora money while bulldozing diaspora property.”

A Clash of Futures

In interviews, Umahi often describes himself as an engineer building for posterity. Yet to the investors of Winhomes, posterity has arrived too early — and with wrecking claws.

Their case encapsulates Nigeria’s central paradox: a state desperate for investment but allergic to accountability. The ₦85 billion dispute is not just about compensation; it is about whether contracts, titles, and court orders still mean anything once national ambition enters the picture.

Epilogue — Waiting for Justice

As 2025 draws to a close, the Winhomes site remains fenced by debris and silence. A handful of workers guard what is left of the perimeter wall. Nearby, the graded earth of the highway gleams under the sun, a scar of progress running through private loss.

One displaced homeowner summed it up quietly:

“They call it the Coastal Highway. For us, it’s the road that took everything.”

For now, the court has yet to fix a final hearing date. The government pushes on, kilometer by kilometer, towards Calabar. Each meter of fresh concrete is also a meter of deepening distrust — a reminder that the real distance to cover may not be 700 kilometers of coast, but the widening gulf between state power and citizen rights.

 

Part 4: Procurement Without Competition

Inside the ₦15-trillion highway deal that escaped open bidding and rewrote Nigeria’s rules of public procurement.

The Hidden Gate

Every Nigerian megaproject begins with a promise: transparency, competition, value for money.
The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, valued at ₦15 trillion, began the same way — as an emblem of renewal. But beneath the official rhetoric of progress lies a trail of procurement decisions taken behind closed doors, steered by a single firm, Hitech Construction Company Ltd, and defended by one man, Minister of Works Dave Umahi.

At the center of the controversy is a single phrase from the Public Procurement Act of 2007:

“Restrictive tendering may be used where goods, works or services are available only from a limited number of suppliers.”

That narrow exemption — meant for emergencies or unique expertise — has become the legal fig leaf for Nigeria’s costliest construction project.

A Trillion-Naira Shortcut

When Umahi announced that Hitech had been awarded Section 1 of the highway — roughly 47.47 kilometers from Lagos to Lekki, priced at ₦1.068 trillion — observers expected an explanation of how the company emerged winner. There was none.

Instead, Umahi told reporters the contract was done through “restrictive procurement”, justified by Hitech’s “rare technical capacity” to pour rigid concrete pavement at industrial scale.

He argued that only Hitech possessed the required concrete pavers and batching plants in Nigeria. “We needed speed, quality, and capacity,” he said. “We didn’t have time for open bidding.”

That single sentence suspended the spirit of the procurement law — a law designed precisely to prevent haste from becoming a gateway to abuse.

Following the Paper Trail

Documents obtained from the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) confirm that the Ministry of Works requested a waiver to engage Hitech directly under Section 42(1)(f) of the Act.
The bureau approved the waiver, citing “specialized capability and urgent national importance.”

But procurement experts note that urgency must be proven by a declared emergency, not political enthusiasm. “Restrictive tendering is not a synonym for presidential priority,” said, a former BPP adviser. “It’s for cases where only one supplier exists globally — not when others were simply never invited.”

At least five local and international contractors — including Julius Berger, CCECC, and RCC — confirmed to industry reporters that they never received invitations to bid.

“They told us the job was already taken,” said one senior executive who requested anonymity. “You can’t compete for a tender that never opened.”

A Monopoly in Motion

By 2025, Hitech had secured contracts for four major sections of the highway:

Section	Location	Estimated Value	Status
1	Lagos	₦1.068 trillion	Ongoing
2	Ogun–Ondo	₦1.6 trillion	Mobilized
3A/3B	Akwa Ibom–Cross River	₦1.33 trillion	Awarded
4A/4B	Edo–Delta (proposed)	TBD	Preliminary

Collectively, Hitech now controls more than ₦3 trillion in public contracts on one project — an unprecedented concentration for a single company in Nigeria’s procurement history.

Critics say this dominance was engineered, not earned. The company’s lineage traces to the Chagoury Group, whose founders have longstanding business and political ties to Nigeria’s power elite, including President Bola Tinubu.

During Tinubu’s tenure as Lagos governor (1999–2007), Hitech built the Lekki–Epe Expressway, parts of Eko Atlantic City, and Banana Island’s sea-defense walls. Its relationship with Lagos officialdom became symbiotic — Hitech supplied infrastructure; government supplied access.

The Chagoury Connection

The Chagoury brothers — Gilbert and Ronald — are Lebanese-Nigerian businessmen whose companies have shaped Lagos’ skyline for three decades. Their record is a blend of engineering feats and recurring controversy: alleged sweetheart land deals, tax disputes, and opaque financing.

By the time Umahi entered the Ministry of Works in 2023, Hitech’s Lagos footprint was near-total. In the minister’s own words, “No other firm in Nigeria has the equipment to deliver concrete pavement at this scale.”

Industry veterans disagree. Julius Berger pioneered similar concrete technology in Abuja and Port Harcourt decades earlier; Dangote Construction owns multiple mobile batching plants. “The idea that only one company can mix concrete is absurd,” said civil engineer Kayode Adeleye. “What Hitech uniquely has is proximity to power.”

The Price of Secrecy

The absence of open bidding leaves Nigerians guessing whether the country got value for money. Using the ministry’s own figures, Section 1 costs roughly ₦22 billion per kilometer.

For context:

• Ghana’s Tema Motorway Expansion — ₦7 billion/km
• Kenya’s Nairobi Expressway — ₦8 billion/km (including toll plazas)
• Senegal’s Dakar–AIBD Highway — ₦6 billion/km

Even accounting for Nigeria’s inflation and terrain, analysts find the Lagos cost inflated three- to four-fold.

“It’s not just expensive; it’s economically incoherent,” said an, infrastructure economist at the University of Lagos. “Restrictive tendering removed the one mechanism that could discipline cost — competition.”

Deutsche Bank’s Quiet Role

Adding another layer of opacity is the financing model. Section 1’s ₦1.068 trillion contract is backed by a $747 million loan arranged by Deutsche Bank and its partners.

Neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Debt Management Office has released the loan agreement, interest rate, or repayment schedule. When asked in parliament, officials cited “commercial confidentiality.”

The Doherty Lawsuit

In late 2024, Doherty — a civic reformer and former investment banker — filed a public-interest suit accusing the Federal Government, the BPP, and Hitech of violating Sections 24 and 25 of the Procurement Act by failing to conduct open competitive bidding or publish procurement notices.

He also alleged that construction began before a valid Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was made public. The case, still before the courts, has become a rallying point for transparency advocates.

Umahi dismisses it as “frivolous politics.” “Those who have not built a culvert in their lives want to teach us engineering,” he said during a press briefing. “We followed the law. We followed capacity.”

But the minister’s confidence masks a legal vulnerability: the same law he cites requires post-award disclosure of contract details — none of which have been published.

Anatomy of Restrictive Tendering

Procurement experts outline the five checks the Act demands before restrictive tendering can proceed:

1. Justification Report proving no alternative suppliers.
2. BPP Approval specifying scope and duration.
3. Public Notice after award.
4. Independent Review of cost reasonableness.
5. Record of Waiver filed with the National Assembly.

So far, only item 2 — the BPP approval — has been confirmed. The National Assembly never received the waiver file; no cost-reasonableness report is public.

Engineering the Urgency

Umahi frequently defends his haste by invoking presidential directive. “The President wants results fast,” he said. “We can’t spend years advertising when the people need roads.”

But speed, critics note, has become a shield for discretion. By collapsing design, tender, and financing stages into one continuous pipeline, the ministry ensured no external review window existed.

Even the project’s EIA timelines were compressed. Normally, an assessment and public hearing precede construction; here, piling began before publication of the Lagos segment’s EIA summary.

The Numbers Game

The highway’s total estimated cost — ₦15 trillion (≈ $11 billion) — makes it Nigeria’s most expensive public works project ever. Yet the breakdown remains fuzzy.

If each kilometer averages ₦20–23 billion, Section 1’s 47.47 km accounts for roughly 7 percent of total length but 14 percent of total cost. Analysts call this “front-loaded profit.”

Umahi rejects the math: “Every kilometer is unique.” But until unit costs are published, uniqueness becomes convenient vagueness.

Without transparent benchmarks, oversight bodies cannot assess whether pricing reflects terrain difficulty or political mark-up.

Voices of Dissent

Civil-society groups such as BudgIT, SERAP, and the Centre for Infrastructure Governance have petitioned for full contract disclosure. None has succeeded.

In April 2025, SERAP filed a Freedom of Information request demanding:

• Copies of the BPP waiver;
• The Deutsche Bank loan terms;
• Detailed bill of quantities for Section 1.

The ministry replied: “Documents classified — national economic interest.”

Political Insulation

Why the silence? Insiders point to the project’s symbolic status. Tinubu has framed the highway as his administration’s legacy — a “coastal artery for prosperity.” Criticizing it risks being branded anti-development.

For Umahi, this symbolism doubles as protection. “He has the President’s ear,” one senior official said. “No one wants to be the bureaucrat who slows the flagship.”

Within this shield, restrictive procurement becomes policy orthodoxy — the idea that transparency slows progress and that the fastest path to development is through controlled discretion.

The Cost of Control

Economists warn that such centralization breeds long-term risk. Without competitive pressure, projects often suffer cost overruns, design errors, and payment disputes.

Nigeria’s past offers grim precedents:

• The East-West Road ballooned from ₦245 billion to over ₦700 billion.
• The Abuja–Kaduna Rail nearly doubled its initial budget post-award.

Economic analysts warn that secrecy and cost inflation often travel together — a pattern Nigeria’s infrastructure history has repeatedly confirmed. The Coastal Highway, they argue, appears to be following that same trajectory.

A Transparency Test

In July 2025, the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee quietly requested project documents. None were delivered by deadline. Lawmakers privately admit that ministerial cooperation depends on political calculation.

Yet the stakes extend beyond politics. By 2026, repayment on the Deutsche Bank loan will begin. If toll revenues underperform — as analysts expect — taxpayers will shoulder the difference. Without knowing contract margins, citizens cannot even quantify the burden they already bear.

Conclusion — The Price of Closed Doors

The ₦15-trillion Coastal Highway could redefine Nigeria’s infrastructure landscape. But its procurement history already defines something else: the shrinking space for public accountability.

What began as a road project has become a case study in procedural evasion — where legal exceptions become the rule and transparency is treated as sabotage.

As bulldozers advance toward Calabar, Nigerians still await answers more basic than engineering drawings:

• Who else could have built it?
• At what true cost?
• And why was the gate of competition locked before the race began?

Until those answers surface, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway remains less a monument to progress than a monument to the politics of permission — a road paved without competition, stretching endlessly through silence.

Part 5: Following the Deutsche Bank Trail

Inside the $747-million loan powering Nigeria’s most secretive highway—and the hidden debt the public never approved.

The Bank Behind the Bulldozers

When Nigeria’s Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, unveiled the first stretch of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, he framed it as an act of innovation — a triumph of engineering and fiscal ingenuity. What he did not emphasize was the project’s reliance on complex offshore financing and federal guarantees that ultimately tether public funds to private contracts. The presentation celebrated vision but obscured obligation; behind the rhetoric of “smart financing,” Nigeria was quietly underwriting another generation of debt.

But buried beneath that promise lies a $747-million syndicated loan, arranged quietly through Deutsche Bank AG, one of Europe’s largest—and most controversial—lenders. The loan underwrites the first 47.47 kilometers of the ₦15-trillion highway. It is the financial spine of a project that officials tout as “self-funding,” yet whose repayment terms remain hidden from the very taxpayers expected to bear its weight.

In a country where debt disclosure laws exist mostly on paper, the Deutsche Bank facility may be the most opaque infrastructure loan in a generation.

The Loan That Built Section 1

Briefings submitted to the Federal Executive Council in late 2023 indicate that the Deutsche Bank–led consortium structured the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway financing under an Engineering, Procurement, and Construction plus Financing (EPC+F) model. In practice, this meant that Hitech Construction Company Ltd, the contractor, would handle design and construction, while the bank and its partners would supply the upfront capital.

Repayment, according to internal ministry documents, is to occur over a 15- to 20-year window, either through direct federal budget allocations or future toll revenues from the completed highway. While the Ministry of Works publicly promoted the scheme as a creative financing solution, the underlying structure operates as a sovereign-backed loan, committing the government to long-term obligations that remain undisclosed to the public.

Neither the Ministry of Finance nor the Debt Management Office (DMO) has published the loan’s interest rate, currency denomination, or repayment grace period. The question of approval authority is equally unclear: it is disputed whether the Federal Executive Council formally endorsed the agreement or if it proceeded under ministerial discretion. Documentation trails within the DMO suggest that relevant departments were informed only after the contract had been executed, leaving key financial agencies outside the original negotiation process.

The Missing Mandate

Nigeria’s fiscal framework requires that all external borrowing receive National Assembly approval and be recorded in the Debt Management Office’s (DMO) public debt register. Yet as of October 2025, the Deutsche Bank facility does not appear in either.

Fiscal analysts note that while the government presents the arrangement as private financing, any facility guaranteed by the state ultimately constitutes public debt in another form. If confirmed, this would not mark the first instance of creative accounting concealing sovereign exposure. Comparable financing structures underpinned the Abuja–Kaduna rail line and several national power projects—transactions held in contractors’ names but later repaid by the federal treasury. In each case, the liability returned, quietly, to the public purse.

Inside the Syndicate

Deutsche Bank rarely acts alone in high-risk emerging-market infrastructure deals. Internal banking briefs reviewed by reporters list two co-lenders: Afreximbank and an unnamed Gulf-based investment fund.
The trio reportedly channeled funds through a special-purpose vehicle (SPV) incorporated in Mauritius, designed to insulate lenders from Nigerian jurisdiction.

Under this financing structure, the Federal Ministry of Works serves as the off-taker—the entity ultimately responsible for repaying the special-purpose vehicle (SPV). Legal observers note that offshore models of this kind often complicate accountability. In the event of contractual disputes, arbitration is typically governed by international commercial law and conducted in jurisdictions such as London or Paris, rather than Abuja. This arrangement effectively places resolution mechanisms outside Nigeria’s domestic legal reach, limiting citizens’ ability to seek redress through national institutions.

Deutsche Bank’s Reputation Problem

The selection of financier invites scrutiny. Deutsche Bank, the lead arranger for the Coastal Highway facility, has faced more than $20 billion in global fines over the past decade for infractions including money-laundering lapses, rate manipulation, and compliance failures. In 2023, it reached a settlement with U.S. authorities following investigations into transactions involving politically exposed clients in Africa and the Middle East.

Analysts note that such a record raises legitimate concerns about due diligence and reputational risk in a project of this scale. Transparency advocates argue that a public-works initiative of national importance should rely on financing partners with unimpeachable compliance histories and full disclosure standards.

When approached for clarification, Deutsche Bank’s Lagos office issued a short written statement affirming adherence to global compliance frameworks but declined to provide details of the Coastal Highway arrangement, citing client confidentiality. The result is a conspicuous absence of clarity on the exact terms and oversight of the facility.

Currency Risk and the Naira Trap

Beyond ethics lies economics. The loan is denominated in U.S. dollars, while project payments and future toll revenues will be in naira.
At Nigeria’s current exchange volatility, a single 10-naira depreciation adds tens of billions of naira to repayment obligations.

When the facility was signed in late 2023, the exchange rate hovered around ₦900 per dollar. By October 2025, it had crossed ₦1,400. Analysts estimate the loan’s real burden has therefore increased by over 50 percent—without a single additional kilometre paved.

The financing model also raises macroeconomic concerns. By borrowing in foreign currency for a non-export-generating project, Nigeria exposes itself to significant exchange-rate and repayment risks. Fiscal analysts describe this as a textbook example of sovereign vulnerability—where revenue streams remain in naira while obligations must be serviced in dollars or euros, amplifying the long-term fiscal burden on the treasury.

Collateral in Disguise

Multiple sources confirm that federal guarantees were issued to secure the loan, pledging part of the Sovereign Infrastructure Debt Fund (SIDF) as backstop. The SIDF, managed by the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority, was originally created for public-private partnerships, not as collateral for undisclosed loans.

If true, this means future federal budgets could be charged automatically in the event of default. Yet the guarantee documents have not been tabled before the National Assembly, raising constitutional questions about executive borrowing powers.

Lawmakers have expressed frustration that the National Assembly has received no formal briefings on the Deutsche Bank facility or its repayment terms. Legislative analysts note that effective oversight becomes impossible when borrowing arrangements are negotiated without parliamentary disclosure. In the current case, details of the financing emerged first through media reports rather than official communication—an omission that highlights the widening gap between executive action and legislative scrutiny.

 

 

The Tolling Mirage

Umahi has promised that toll plazas along the completed highway will generate revenue to repay the financiers. He has cited projected traffic volumes of 50,000 vehicles per day and toll rates of ₦3,000–₦5,000 per trip.

Transport economists say those figures are wildly optimistic.
At ₦4,000 average toll and 20,000 vehicles daily, annual revenue would barely reach ₦30 billion—less than the naira equivalent of $25 million, insufficient even for interest payments.

Independent analysts reviewing the project’s financing structure note that the repayment model appears unsustainable without government intervention. Revenue projections from tolling alone are unlikely to offset the full cost of debt servicing, suggesting that the federal treasury will eventually absorb part of the liability. In effect, the pledge of a “no-burden” highway collapses under its own arithmetic: either tolls rise steeply, or taxpayers quietly shoulder the difference.

A Loan Without a Country

The secrecy surrounding the facility extends to the project site. Construction workers confirm that payments to subcontractors sometimes arrive directly from offshore accounts, bypassing Nigeria’s Central Bank supervision.
One accountant at a subcontracting firm described receiving “swift transfers from an entity registered in Dubai.”

Such offshore disbursement structures are common in EPC+F projects but come with inherent risks, including potential breaches of capital-control regulations and exposure to money-laundering vulnerabilities. Financial governance experts warn that these arrangements often leave borrowing countries with the debt but not the data—creating opaque audit trails that can disappear into offshore jurisdictions. When transaction records end in tax havens, so too does the prospect of accountability.

Echoes of the Eko Atlantic Model

Observers note parallels between the Coastal Highway financing and the Eko Atlantic City project—a massive reclamation venture also built by Hitech and partly underwritten through offshore vehicles. In both cases, government guarantees were implicit, yet repayment schedules opaque.

“The Chagoury Group perfected this template years ago,” said a former Lagos finance commissioner. “Blend state land, foreign credit, and political capital. The debt is public, the profit private.”

What the Numbers Suggest

If one extrapolates Section 1’s $747 million to the entire 700-km corridor, proportional financing could exceed $11 billion—almost Nigeria’s entire 2025 capital budget. Even if future sections rely partly on budget funding, the debt footprint will be generational.

For comparison:

• The entire Third Mainland Bridge rehabilitation cost less than $100 million.
• The Abuja–Kaduna Rail—a 186-km railway—cost $876 million with open disclosure.

In cost and secrecy combined, the Coastal Highway dwarfs them all.

Deutsche Bank’s Nigerian Strategy

Banking insiders describe the deal as part of Deutsche Bank’s push to re-enter African infrastructure after years of regulatory retreat. Nigeria’s large population and political connections offered opportunity—but also moral hazard.

“Deutsche Bank doesn’t lend this kind of money without top-level guarantees,” said a London-based emerging-markets analyst. “That means somebody in Abuja signed off personally.”

A leaked correspondence between the bank’s regional director and the Ministry of Works—dated February 2024—shows a request for a “letter of comfort” from the Presidency assuring repayment through federal appropriations if toll revenues fall short. The ministry has not denied issuing such a letter.

Public Secrecy, Private Knowledge

Ironically, the only people with partial access to the loan terms are foreign ratings agencies and institutional investors who trade Nigeria’s Eurobonds. Moody’s and Fitch both reference a “coastal corridor financing arrangement” in recent reports—details still unavailable to the Nigerian press.

Observers note that the current arrangement creates a troubling inversion: international financiers and foreign regulators often possess more information about Nigeria’s borrowing terms than the citizens whose taxes will ultimately repay them. This asymmetry has become a defining feature of elite opacity, where public debt is shielded by claims of commercial confidentiality and democratic oversight is reduced to performance rather than participation.

A Minister’s Defense

Umahi has repeatedly rejected allegations of secrecy, insisting at multiple briefings that the financing process followed due diligence and that “Nigerians will see the results in concrete.” When pressed by journalists to release the loan documents, he argued that certain financial details were not for public disclosure, describing them as sensitive contractual information.

That statement crystallized the government’s attitude: public funds, private privacy.

The Oversight Vacuum

The Public Accounts Committee of the National Assembly has quietly requested full disclosure of the loan agreement. As of its August 2025 deadline, none was received. The committee chair confirmed receiving “verbal assurances” from the ministry but no paperwork.

Without documentation, neither Parliament nor the Auditor-General can assess exposure. Meanwhile, repayments may already have begun through “mobilization reimbursements” built into Hitech’s invoices.

The Bigger Picture

Nigeria’s external debt stood at $44 billion in mid-2025. Adding even half of the Coastal Highway’s projected financing could push it beyond $50 billion, straining foreign-exchange reserves and increasing vulnerability to currency shocks.

Yet official statistics will not reflect the rise until the DMO recognizes the Deutsche Bank facility as sovereign. That could take years—by which time repayments will already be flowing.

Conclusion — Debt Without Debate

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway is marketed as a triumph of engineering. But beneath its fresh concrete lies a financial architecture of extraordinary opacity:

• A foreign loan signed without legislative approval;
• Offshore disbursement channels immune to domestic audit;
• Dollar exposure in a collapsing currency;
• And guarantees that privatize profits while socializing risk.

The road may indeed transform coastal logistics. But the loan that built it could haunt Nigeria long after the ribbon-cutting ceremonies end.

For now, the only certainty is that while citizens watch bulldozers advance across their shoreline, a quieter machine—the debt engine—is already running, invisible but relentless, pushing the nation further down a highway paved not only with concrete, but with obligations no one voted for.

 

Part 6: The Price Per Kilometer They Won’t Reveal

Cracking the arithmetic of Nigeria’s ₦15-trillion coastal project—and the silence that keeps its true cost hidden.

The Question That Started It All

It began with a simple request on live television.

“Minister, what is the cost per kilometer of this road?”

The question came from Arise TV anchor Rufai Oseni. The man dodging it was Dave Umahi, Minister of Works and overseer of Nigeria’s largest public-works venture—the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, officially priced at ₦15 trillion (≈ $11 billion).

Umahi’s response became infamous:

“You cannot talk about cost per kilometer. Every kilometer is different. Asking me that is like naming a child still in the mother’s belly.”

For a while since that exchange, Nigerians have tried to name the “child” themselves—using fragments of budget data, leaked valuations, and international benchmarks to reconstruct what the government refuses to disclose.

The Numbers on Paper

From ministry briefings and project filings, these are the only confirmed figures so far:

Section	Route Length	Official Value	Approx. Cost / km
1 Lagos	47.47 km	₦1.068 trillion	≈ ₦22.5 billion
2 Ogun – Ondo	≈ 100 km	₦1.6 trillion	≈ ₦16 billion
3A / 3B Akwa Ibom–Cross River	≈ 130 km	₦1.33 trillion	≈ ₦10 billion
Total (to date)	≈ 277 km	₦4 trillion +	—

If Section 1’s ratio holds across all 700 km, total cost would exceed ₦15 trillion, aligning with government estimates but exposing a startling unit price: ₦21–23 billion per kilometer.

At current exchange rates, that is roughly $17 million per km—triple the continental average for six-lane concrete expressways.

 

Benchmarking the Improbable

Independent engineers compared the Coastal Highway with similar concrete roads:

Project	Country	Length (km)	Total Cost (USD)	USD / km
Nairobi Expressway	Kenya	27	$600 m	$22 m /km (tolled, elevated)
Tema Motorway Expansion	Ghana	31	$210 m	$6.7 m /km
Dakar–AIBD Toll Highway	Senegal	32	$220 m	$6.9 m /km
Lagos–Calabar (Coastal) Est.	Nigeria	700	$11 b (₦15 trn)	$15–17 m /km

Only Kenya’s elevated tollway—built entirely above ground through a dense urban corridor—approaches Nigeria’s price tag. The Coastal Highway, by contrast, runs largely along undeveloped shoreline.

Analysts argue that if terrain complexity or material choice genuinely justifies construction costs that are several times higher than comparable projects, such claims should be supported by transparent data. Without publicly available cost breakdowns or engineering assessments, the rationale for the pricing remains speculative — leaving the impression of concrete without accountability.

Concrete vs. Asphalt—The Technical Excuse

Umahi’s primary defense rests on rigid-pavement construction: using reinforced concrete instead of asphalt to extend lifespan from 20 to 50 years.

Concrete is indeed costlier upfront—typically 30 to 40 percent higher—but savings accrue over time through reduced maintenance. Even so, experts say the price gap does not explain a 300 percent markup.

Engineering experts caution that the shift to concrete pavement should not translate into a blank cheque. Durability does not excuse excess; if the baseline cost is inflated, longevity merely compounds the waste. Despite repeated requests, the Ministry of Works has yet to publish the bill-of-quantities data—the detailed breakdown of materials, labor, and unit costs that would substantiate the project’s steep price escalation.

 

 

The Mystery of Section 1

Section 1, stretching from Ahmadu Bello Way (Victoria Island) to Lekki–Epe Corridor, is both the shortest and priciest.

Its 47 kilometers cut through reclaimed land, existing urban property, and sea-defense zones—factors that raise costs but not to astronomical levels.

Even assuming ₦10 billion/km for land acquisition and compensation (a generous estimate given the ₦85 billion total compensation reported for Winhomes Estate and nearby estates combined), the remaining ₦12 billion/km remains unexplained.

Section 1 of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway—about 47 kilometers from Ahmadu Bello Way on Victoria Island through the Lekki–Epe corridor—is both the shortest and costliest segment. Its route cuts across reclaimed land, urban property, and sea-defense zones, all legitimate cost drivers. The contract value of roughly ₦1.068 trillion implies an average cost exceeding ₦22 billion per kilometer. Even allowing generously for land acquisition and compensation costs reported around ₦85 billion in total, a large portion of the expenditure remains unexplained in publicly available documents.

An engineer within the ministry, who requested anonymity, indicated that the project’s early cost estimates incorporated wide contingency margins for wave barriers, service lanes, and future toll plazas, even though final field designs were still being developed. The budgeting process, according to internal accounts, reflected political urgency rather than engineering precision, with figures adjusted to fit timelines rather than technical validation.

Budget Silence

Ordinarily, megaprojects appear in Nigeria’s federal budget with line-item transparency. The 2025 Appropriation Act, however, lists only a lump-sum “Coastal Road Project — ₦500 billion capital allocation,” with no breakdown of sections or contractors.

When lawmakers queried the gap, the Ministry of Works replied that “contractor financing” covers the rest—a reference to the Deutsche Bank loan disclosed in Part 5 of this series. That answer moved the project off the budget books and beyond parliamentary arithmetic.

Legislative observers describe the financing model as a form of fiscal sleight of hand, where obligations are deferred and reclassified rather than openly recorded. Costs that should appear as present expenditure are instead structured to surface later as debt, allowing short-term optics of prudence while quietly expanding long-term liabilities.

The Audit Trail That Isn’t

In July 2025, the civil-society organization SERAP submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the Federal Ministry of Works, seeking disclosure of the project’s cost-per-kilometer breakdown, valuation certificates, and Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) addenda. The ministry declined, invoking national economic interest as grounds for refusal.

At the same time, the Office of the Auditor-General confirmed that it had yet to receive interim payment certificates, even though approximately ₦300 billion had already been disbursed under the heading of mobilization. Internal audit sources described the situation as an accountability vacuum—construction activity advancing rapidly while the corresponding financial documentation remains undisclosed.

Terrain and Excuses

Umahi insists topography drives cost: swampy soils, tidal surges, and sand-filling demands. To test that claim, independent surveyors analyzed geotechnical data from the Lagos coastal belt. Their conclusion: while soil stabilization adds roughly ₦2–₦3 billion per km, it still leaves ₦15 billion unaccounted for.

Even if additional seawall defenses double that figure, Section 1 remains two to three times costlier than comparable marine roads in Asia or West Africa.

“They’re using the ocean as a calculator,” quipped one project consultant. “Every wave adds another billion.”

Comparative Ghosts

Across Africa, cost transparency has become the defining test of public-sector credibility. Kenya published the entire Nairobi Expressway contract, including unit rates and financing terms. Ghana made the Tema Motorway procurement dossier publicly accessible online.

Nigeria, by contrast, remains the outlier. Neither the Bills of Engineering Measurement and Evaluation (BEME) for the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway nor the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) waiver report has been released. Procurement law requires that contract details be disclosed within sixty days of award, yet nearly eighteen months later, the figures behind the nation’s most expensive highway remain shielded from public view—leaving both citizens and oversight institutions to speculate on the arithmetic of accountability.

Political Math

Inside the ministry, aides describe a culture where speed equals secrecy.
“Once the President declared it a legacy project, all timelines collapsed,” said one senior civil engineer. “No one wanted to delay the flagship by asking accounting questions.”

Umahi’s communication style reinforces that ethos. When pressed, he invokes engineering jargon—“soil reports,” “chainage variations,” “selective tendering”—turning simple arithmetic into mysticism.

For the public, the effect is alienation: citizens confronted not with figures but with faith.

The ₦15-Trillion Paradox

At ₦15 trillion, the Coastal Highway’s headline value equals nearly one-third of Nigeria’s entire 2025 budget. Yet neither Parliament nor the public can verify how that sum was derived.

Break it down:

• ₦4 trillion already contracted (Sections 1–3B).
• ₦11 trillion projected for remaining 423 km—roughly ₦26 billion per km.
• ₦747 million ($) borrowed via Deutsche Bank.

Even if future sections come cheaper, Nigeria has already locked in some of the continent’s highest infrastructure unit costs.

The Human Multiplier

Every opaque kilometer also multiplies the human cost. Compensation payments lose value to inflation, contractors inflate early margins to hedge against currency volatility, and displaced homeowners—particularly in areas such as Okun-Ajah—face chronic delays rationalized as budget adjustments.

Economists and policy observers describe a cascading effect: the absence of cost transparency inflates every link in the chain—compensation, materials, logistics, even local rent along the corridor. What begins as fiscal opacity at the top becomes, downstream, an entire micro-economy built on uncertainty and exploitation.

Comparing Concrete

Independent engineers estimate that a kilometer of six-lane concrete highway — including drainage, lighting, and signage — should cost between ₦6 billion and ₦9 billion under current Nigerian market conditions.
Allowing an additional ₦2 billion for coastal stabilization and ₦1 billion for contingencies brings the indicative total to roughly ₦12 billion per kilometer — about half the official cost declared for Section 1 of the Lagos–Calabar project.

That figure suggests Section 1 may be at least 80 percent overpriced. Whether through design inflation, procurement mark-ups, or financing charges, the arithmetic remains hidden in sealed contracts.

Why It Matters

Unit-cost transparency is more than academic. It determines:

• Budget predictability—how future sections will be funded.
• Debt exposure—how loan repayments align with deliverables.
• Accountability—whether Nigerians pay fair value for concrete.

Without it, oversight collapses. Cost secrecy turns citizens into spectators of their own indebtedness.

Voices from the Inside

A mid-level works-ministry engineer, now on leave, offered a candid explanation:

“Nobody wants to be the person who leaks the numbers. They’d lose their posting. But trust me, if the real cost per kilometer is ever published, there will be outrage.”

His estimate: ₦12 billion/km for actual works, ₦8–10 billion for everything else—‘political contingencies.’

When Silence Becomes Policy

The refusal to publish cost figures appears less an oversight than a deliberate governance tactic. By keeping numbers fluid, the ministry preserves wide discretion for renegotiation, variation orders, and new financing windows. Each design adjustment or contract amendment becomes an avenue for fiscal revision—and potential profit.

Analysts describe the Coastal Highway as a “floating project” in which the route, design, and price remain in constant motion, while only the secrecy stays fixed. The absence of stable data ensures that accountability, too, remains perpetually deferred.

The Arithmetic of Accountability

If Nigerians knew the precise cost per kilometer, they could calculate efficiency, benchmark performance, and anticipate debt service. Instead, they are told to trust engineers who will not show the math.

As one civil-society statement put it:

“We can measure the length of the highway in kilometers, but not in truth.”

Conclusion — Counting the Uncounted

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway was meant to symbolize precision—surveyed chainages, laser-leveled concrete, digital mapping. Yet its financials remain a blur of rounded numbers and withheld documents.

In refusing to answer the simplest question—how much per kilometer?—the Ministry of Works has turned arithmetic into state secret, and accountability into abstraction.

Until the figures are published, every kilometer poured is a line of unverified expenditure; every invoice, a new chapter of doubt. The highway grows longer each week, but so does the list of unanswered questions.

In the end, what Nigeria is really building may not just be a road across its coast, but a monument to a nation’s inability to count the cost of its own ambition.

Read also: Uzodinma Unmasked: Loot, Lies, And Imo’s Stolen Future

Part 7: Power, Paranoia and the Threat of the State

How Minister Dave Umahi turned a civil dispute into a security crusade—and what that means for free speech, justice, and investor confidence.

The Moment the Tone Changed

On air, it sounded like bravado.

“I had wanted EFCC, DSS, Police, even Interpol to come into the case,”

Minister Dave Umahi declared on Arise TV while defending the ₦15-trillion Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway.

Viewers froze. A cabinet minister had just proposed unleashing Nigeria’s most powerful security agencies—not against terrorists or traffickers, but against diaspora investors who went to court over demolished property.

In that single sentence, Umahi recast a land-compensation dispute into a national-security affair, exposing a deeper pathology of governance: the reflex to answer dissent with intimidation.

When Development Becomes a Crime Scene

The case at issue was civil. Winhomes Global Services Ltd, whose estate in Okun-Ajah was bulldozed to make way for Section 1 of the highway, had filed Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1063/25 seeking injunctions and damages worth roughly ₦85 billion ($250 million).

Rather than debate the facts—titles, compensation, procedure—Umahi implied the plaintiffs might be criminals. “Some of them are not genuine investors,” he said. “They are using the name diaspora to defraud the public.”

Within days, anonymous letters purporting to come from “concerned citizens” circulated online, urging the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to probe the company’s funding sources. None produced evidence; all echoed the minister’s talking points.

Civil-rights lawyers called it “lawfare by innuendo”—the use of security rhetoric to delegitimize civic action.

The Machinery of Fear

In Nigeria’s alphabet soup of enforcement—EFCC, DSS, Police, Interpol—each acronym carries menace. For ordinary citizens, an EFCC summons can ruin a reputation; a DSS “invitation” can disappear a critic for days.

By invoking the possibility of law-enforcement involvement, Umahi effectively weaponized the atmosphere of fear that already surrounds high-stakes federal projects. He did not need to initiate formal investigations; the mere suggestion of EFCC or DSS scrutiny was enough to silence critics.

The impact was immediate. Diaspora investors and community representatives who had previously spoken openly in the media withdrew from public discussion. Interviews were cancelled, and messages that once carried outrage turned cautious or noncommittal. The possibility of official attention alone became a form of censorship, ensuring that self-preservation replaced civic participation.

A Pattern, Not an Accident

Umahi’s combative style predates the highway. As governor of Ebonyi State, he once banned two journalists from covering government events for “writing lies.” In 2022 he physically ejected a labor leader from a meeting, later describing the act as “discipline.”

To many observers, the Arise TV exchange offered an unfiltered view of Umahi’s governing style—authority performed as spectacle. When pressed with inconvenient facts, he appeared to rely less on evidence than on assertion, turning confrontation itself into a display of control. The episode illustrated how power, when challenged, can reassert dominance not through transparency but through intimidation.

Security as Shield for Secrecy

Behind the bluster lies a strategic purpose. Framing a controversy as a security matter allows ministries to withhold information. Under the Freedom of Information Act, agencies may deny requests that “prejudice national security.”

Since Umahi’s outburst, the Ministry of Works has invoked that clause repeatedly to reject document demands on the highway—loan agreements, valuation lists, and EIA reports—all deemed “sensitive to national interest.”

By framing a civil contract dispute as a security matter, the authorities effectively constructed a shield of immunity around the project. Once an issue is classified under the language of national security, scrutiny becomes taboo — even when the only real threat is the potential embarrassment of disclosure.

Collateral Damage: The Diaspora

Nigeria’s diaspora remits about $20 billion a year—more than the nation earns from oil royalties some years. The Winhomes investors were part of that pipeline, channeling foreign savings into domestic housing.

Now, the image of a minister threatening them with law-enforcement has rippled through diaspora forums from London to Toronto.

Members of the Nigerian diaspora investing in real estate say they increasingly feel treated as suspects rather than partners. The threat of official scrutiny around legitimate litigation has cast a long shadow over investor confidence.

Industry data from Lagos real-estate brokers indicate a 30–35 percent decline in diaspora-funded property transactions since late 2024—a chilling signal that fear now travels faster than capital.

The Legal Line

Nigeria’s constitution grants ministers the power to refer credible allegations of fraud to relevant agencies, but not to weaponize those agencies as instruments of intimidation. Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution guarantees the presumption of innocence, while Section 39 protects freedom of expression—rights often strained when political power overlaps with law enforcement.

Legal analysts argue that by suggesting criminal investigation of litigants, the Ministry of Works blurred the line between legitimate oversight and executive interference. No agency has publicly confirmed receiving a formal petition from the minister, yet none has denied it either. The resulting silence sustains both ambiguity and pressure, creating the perception of scrutiny without due process.

Inside the Ministry

Officials within the Federal Ministry of Works portray their minister’s threats as figurative—intended to expose false claims, not to pursue genuine prosecution. Yet internal correspondence reviewed by this investigation indicates otherwise. In April 2025, the ministry’s legal department circulated a memo to the EFCC requesting “due diligence on diaspora investors’ funding sources.” The commission acknowledged receipt but has taken no public action. The document’s existence nonetheless demonstrates that rhetoric translated into bureaucratic movement, lending substance to fears that political statements have administrative consequences.

Echoes of the Past

Nigeria has witnessed similar patterns before. In 2017, environmental activists campaigning against oil-spill mismanagement were detained under the Terrorism (Prevention) Act. During the #EndSARS protests of 2020, several organizers saw their bank accounts frozen under the guise of financial-crime investigations. The current controversy fits this lineage: civic advocacy reframed as subversion, with dissent treated as disorder.

The Media Under Pressure

Journalistic access to the project has tightened since the televised clash that exposed ministerial defensiveness. Reporters now face pre-screened questions; field engineers are instructed not to speak to outsiders. In June 2025, two correspondents from a national daily were briefly detained by military police while photographing demolition sites near Lekki, released only after their credentials were verified. The message is unmistakable: visibility is managed, not granted. Bulldozers remain accessible to cameras—documents do not.

Paranoia as Policy

Within the ministry, criticism is increasingly perceived as sabotage. Staff describe a growing siege mentality—phones barred from strategy meetings, drafts marked Eyes Only, and disagreements read as disloyalty. The language of national security has replaced the grammar of governance, creating a culture in which fear masquerades as discipline.

The Psychology of Power

Analysts trace this reflex to Nigeria’s militarized bureaucratic tradition, where authority is demonstrated through control rather than persuasion. Umahi, an engineer by training and politician by survival, appears to have absorbed that tradition fully. Projects are executed with the precision of command; dissent is treated as resistance. The road thus becomes more than infrastructure—it is a theatre for the performance of power.

Institutional Consequences

Beyond reputational damage, the intimidation strategy carries measurable administrative costs:

1. Investor Withdrawal: at least three foreign construction firms are reported to have declined subcontracts, citing uncertainty over regulatory climate.
2. Judicial Delay: active court cases have slowed, with plaintiffs reluctant to appear adversarial against the state.
3. Policy Distortion: regulatory agencies, wary of reprisal, hesitate to scrutinize the ministry’s submissions.

Fear, once instrumentalized, becomes a governance model—efficient for silencing dissent, ruinous for accountability.

The Cost of Secrecy

The same “security” rationale now shields the most crucial financial documents: the Deutsche Bank loan terms, the procurement waiver, and the unit-cost breakdown already analyzed in earlier sections. Each has been newly marked classified. Transparency laws intended to protect the public are thus inverted—protecting officials instead.

How the Threat Spreads

Following the minister’s televised warnings, state commissioners of works in Ogun, Ondo, and Akwa Ibom echoed similar language, cautioning journalists and property owners against “false reports.” By mid-2025, public discussion of the Coastal Highway had polarized: government optimism on one side, grassroots silence on the other. Intimidation had become institutional dialect, diffused through hierarchy.

Resistance and Reversal

Despite pervasive fear, resistance persists. The Nigerian Guild of Editors, the Civil Society Coalition for Accountability, and several diaspora groups have petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to investigate what they describe as administrative harassment. The NHRC summoned the Ministry of Works for clarification in August 2025; no response has yet been filed. Meanwhile, the Winhomes legal team continues its case, reaffirming that the courts—not the cabinet—remain the constitutional arbiters of dispute.

What’s at Stake

This conflict transcends one ministry or project. If the lexicon of national security becomes standard in handling civil disputes, development authoritarianism risks becoming institutionalized: a system where infrastructure is advanced by decree and defended by intimidation. True modernization is not measured by the pace of construction but by the resilience of the freedoms that accompany it.

Conclusion — The Sound of Silence

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway stretches onward—bulldozers cutting sand, cranes rising above the Atlantic haze. Yet beneath the mechanical rhythm lies a subtler machinery: that of fear.

When a government invokes secrecy to answer scrutiny, transparency dies quietly, replaced by implication and silence. Each question unasked, each critic self-censored, confirms that power no longer needs force to rule—only the suggestion of consequence.

For investors, journalists, and citizens alike, the message resonates with precision: speak cautiously, build quietly, question nothing.
And that is the most perilous road of all—the one where paranoia becomes policy, and the true cost of progress is tallied not in naira or kilometers, but in the silence of those too afraid to ask the next question.

 

Part 8: The Environmental Casualties

Where mangroves drown, livelihoods vanish, and Nigeria’s largest highway advances without an environmental compass.

A Coastline Under Construction

From the air, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway looks like a pale ribbon cut through green and blue. Concrete embankments stretch where tidal wetlands once absorbed the Atlantic. To project planners, it’s the shape of progress. To residents and ecologists, it’s the outline of an unfolding ecological disaster.

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway is cutting across one of West Africa’s most fragile coastlines — a corridor of mangroves, lagoons, beaches, and fishing communities that serve as both food source and natural flood barrier for millions. Yet as bulldozers edge closer to the sea, urgent questions persist: Where is the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)? And who authorized construction before the environment was even measured?

The Vanishing Wetlands

Along the Lekki–Okun-Ajah corridor, large deposits of laterite now blanket areas that once served as mangrove nurseries. Field observation and satellite imagery show visible alterations to tidal flow and sediment coloration near Omu Creek, where local fishers report declining catches.

Mangroves form Nigeria’s first defense against erosion and coastal flooding. Each hectare sequesters carbon at levels comparable to tropical rainforest and stabilizes shoreline soil. The Lagos coastline has already lost more than one-third of its mangrove cover since 1980, according to multiple academic and government sources. Current highway construction risks accelerating that decline.

Studies from the University of Lagos Lagoon Research Centre indicate that ongoing reclamation could increase storm-surge penetration by as much as 20 to 25 percent in low-lying communities such as Ogombo, Sangotedo, and Okun-Ajah—areas already facing recurrent flooding.

The Missing EIA

Nigeria’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act of 1992 requires that all major infrastructure projects publish a full EIA, hold public hearings, and obtain federal certification before work begins.

For the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, the Federal Ministry of Environment confirms only a preliminary scoping document for the Lagos segment, issued in late 2023. The final EIA—covering marine biodiversity, sediment flow, and resettlement planning—has not been made public. In several affected communities, stakeholder consultations reportedly occurred after excavation had already started.

The sequence suggests a reversal of due process: construction preceding assessment, rather than the reverse.

Government Explanations

The Ministry of Works maintains that it is collaborating with the Ministry of Environment and operating within the law. However, the Environmental Impact Assessment Department has not confirmed receipt of updated route data for the realignment that traverses Okun-Ajah and parts of the Winhomes Estate area.

Without revised coordinates, environmental agencies cannot model erosion risk or habitat loss accurately. The contradiction—construction moving ahead without confirmed assessment—illustrates a governance pattern in which engineering decisions lead and environmental oversight follows.

Erosion by Design

Satellite images from 2024–2025 reveal expanding sand-fill zones extending into the Atlantic between Elegushi and Ogombo Point. Each new fill deflects tidal energy eastward, accelerating erosion toward Ibeju-Lekki and Oniru beaches. Comparative shoreline data from 2019 and 2025 show measurable beach-width loss in those areas, consistent with altered wave dynamics.

Residents have begun adapting in modest ways—raising compound walls, stacking sandbags, or relocating businesses inland—incremental responses to a shifting shoreline that no longer follows predictable seasonal boundaries.

The Human Ecology

For decades, coastal families combined fishing with informal tourism—horse rides, food stalls, and weekend recreation. Those livelihoods have largely disappeared amid reclamation and demolition.

The EIA Act’s social-impact clause mandates livelihood restoration for affected communities, yet no such plan has been publicly released. A survey by the Centre for Coastal Rights estimates that more than 1,200 small enterprises between Victoria Island and Lekki Phase II have been disrupted; fewer than 200 have received formal compensation or resettlement support.

Environmental degradation has thus merged with economic displacement, erasing micro-economies that once balanced subsistence and service.

Concrete and Carbon

The project’s adoption of rigid concrete pavement—praised for its longevity—also carries heavy climate implications. Cement production emits roughly 900 kilograms of CO₂ per ton. Analysts estimate that the highway’s full buildout will require several million tons of cement, translating into well over one million tons of carbon emissions during construction alone.

The Ministry of Works has announced tree-planting as a form of carbon offset, but environmental scientists note that mangroves and mature coastal vegetation far outperform ornamental plantings in long-term carbon absorption and shoreline protection.

Fragmented Oversight

Environmental compliance for the Coastal Highway is split among multiple agencies:

1. Federal Ministry of Environment – approves EIAs.
2. Nigerian Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) – regulates shoreline works.
3. Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) – monitors marine impacts.
4. State Environmental Protection Agencies – oversee local enforcement.

Each acknowledges gaps in documentation from the Ministry of Works. This diffusion of authority produces accountability fatigue—each agency assuming another will intervene. In practice, oversight becomes a bureaucratic relay where responsibility passes but enforcement rarely lands.

International Alarm

Nigeria’s coast is now listed by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) as among the regions most vulnerable to climate-induced displacement. Foreign development partners have expressed concern that rapid coastal construction without transparent environmental governance could jeopardize future climate-resilience funding. The contradiction is stark: the same government seeking billions for coastal protection is also reclaiming wetlands at unprecedented scale.

A Lesson from History

Past precedents emphasize the risks. The Lekki–Epe Expressway (2008–2011) caused lagoon siltation that still hampers drainage today, while the Eko Atlantic Reclamation altered wave patterns and intensified erosion at nearby beaches. The Coastal Highway now threatens to repeat both errors—this time along an even longer stretch of coast.

What the Law Demands

The EIA Act allows for penalties and suspension of work in cases of non-compliance, but enforcement has historically been weak. Since its enactment in 1992, no federal megaproject has been halted under this provision, and fines seldom exceed ₦2 million—a negligible figure against national infrastructure budgets. The imbalance reduces environmental law to symbolism: the cost of violation remains far cheaper than the cost of compliance.

The Costs We Don’t Count

Nigeria already spends ₦70–₦100 billion annually on erosion control. Analysts project that accelerated shoreline loss from the highway could multiply that figure within a decade through property damage, infrastructure repairs, displacement, and declining fisheries.

According to the World Bank’s 2023 Coastal Risk Assessment, each kilometer of lost mangrove increases annual flood-defense spending by about $150,000. Over the project’s length, the potential long-term liability reaches tens of millions of dollars annually—a cost rarely acknowledged in project briefings.

Environmental Impact, Social Memory

In Akwa Ibom and Cross River, where new sections are under way, local leaders report clearance of community lands and cultural sites with little prior notice. For populations whose heritage is tied to the shoreline, environmental damage also erases collective memory. The absence of heritage mapping in official environmental documentation deepens the social wound.

The Minister’s Response

In public remarks, Minister Dave Umahi has defended the project’s ecological record, asserting compliance and pointing to planned shoreline defenses and drainage integration. However, no detailed designs or budgets for these protective works have been released. Critics caution that retroactive additions could emerge later as high-cost variation orders, addressing problems that should have been prevented through early environmental due diligence.

Toward a Transparent Remedy

Experts across engineering and environmental disciplines propose straightforward reforms:

• Publish the complete EIA for each section online;
• Commission independent audits every six months;
• Enable community-based monitoring of mitigation measures.

Institutions such as the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA)—which co-funds some coastal projects—already operate under international disclosure standards. Expanding such transparency could provide the cheapest and most effective safeguard against environmental malpractice.

 

Conclusion: The Sea Remembers

Concrete may tame the landscape temporarily, but the sea keeps its own ledger. Each mangrove uprooted, each lagoon constricted, alters natural defenses that will one day test the durability of the new highway.

For now, progress gleams in cranes and graded sand, yet beneath that optimism lies an ecological equation: every meter gained on land may become a meter surrendered to the ocean. If the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway is to connect Nigeria’s future, it must first protect the coast that makes that future possible—before the nation discovers that the road to development also leads, inexorably, toward submersion.

 

Part 9: The Chagoury–Umahi Alliance

Inside the power partnership shaping Nigeria’s costliest road—and the decades-long network linking politics, concrete, and capital.

A Partnership Cast in Concrete

Every major infrastructure story in contemporary Lagos carries a familiar mark: the blue-and-white emblem of Hitech Construction Company Ltd, a flagship of the Chagoury Group. From Eko Atlantic City to Banana Island, Hitech’s projects have reshaped the Lagos shoreline and, by extension, the country’s political economy of construction.

When Dave Umahi became Minister of Works in 2023, his first signature project—the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway—naturally extended that lineage. Within months, Hitech secured Section 1 under a restrictive-tendering process that bypassed open competition. To observers, it looked less like coincidence than continuity.

The Chagoury Footprint

Founded by Lebanese-Nigerian brothers Gilbert and Ronald Chagoury in the 1970s, the group spans construction, real estate, cement, glass, and hospitality. Subsidiaries include Hitech Construction, ITB Nigeria, C & C Construction, Panama Industries, and Eko Hotels & Suites.

The company’s relationship with Lagos State deepened under Governor Bola Ahmed Tinubu (1999–2007), when Hitech handled the Lekki–Epe Expressway, the Bar Beach Shore-Protection Project, and groundwork for Eko Atlantic City, a 10-square-kilometre land-reclamation venture. That partnership embedded the firm within the city’s governance architecture.

From State to Federation

When Tinubu became president, the same network extended naturally to the federal level. The Ministry of Works justified its selection of Hitech on the basis of “unique technical capacity,” citing the firm’s marine-concrete expertise and equipment. Yet no comparative study of other qualified companies has been published, leaving open the question of whether exclusivity reflected engineering necessity or political inheritance.

The Concrete Doctrine

Hitech’s competitive edge lies in rigid-pavement technology—concrete roads rather than asphalt. Minister Umahi has made concrete construction a national policy priority, framing it as durable, locally sourced, and cost-effective over time. The approach aligns with Hitech’s long-standing specialization, effectively limiting competition to contractors already equipped for large-scale batching and casting.

The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) later confirmed that Section 1 was awarded through restrictive tendering under Section 42(1)(f) of the Public Procurement Act, which allows limited bidding when only a few suppliers possess the required capability. However, the ministry has released no documentation showing whether other qualified firms were assessed before the exemption was granted.

Engineering Continuities

The Coastal Highway replicates many design principles from Eko Atlantic—dredging, land reclamation, and concrete embankments fed by similar quarry sources. Both depend on Hitech’s Dutch-built dredgers and emphasize “coastal resilience” as justification. The result blurs boundaries between public infrastructure and private expansion: one project reinforces the market value of the other.

Financial Architecture

The Deutsche Bank–led facility analyzed earlier in this series channels directly through Hitech’s contract. In effect, the company serves simultaneously as contractor, financing conduit, and project beneficiary. The arrangement mirrors the Eko Atlantic model, where contractor-arranged loans carried implicit sovereign guarantees. It reflects a single-vendor ecosystem in which construction and credit converge.

Corporate Opacity

Records from the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) list the Chagoury family as principal directors of Hitech. Yet detailed beneficial-ownership declarations, now mandatory under Nigeria’s 2022 regulations, have not been made public. The Ministry of Works has also not released Hitech’s ownership disclosure, despite its eligibility as a major federal contractor. Transparency advocates argue that without such data, citizens cannot trace who ultimately profits from large-scale public spending.

Economic and Political Symbiosis

The alliance between Umahi’s ministry and Hitech illustrates how technical efficiency and political familiarity intertwine. Hitech’s reputation for rapid delivery makes it attractive to governments seeking visible results; its deep Lagos roots provide implicit political assurance. This fusion of capability and trust has produced a form of infrastructural corporatism—development driven by a small circle of firms perceived as both competent and loyal.

Material Integration

Hitech’s ecosystem extends vertically through subsidiaries that supply cement, glass, and dredging services—inputs the highway consumes in vast quantities. Such integration reduces logistical risk but concentrates profit and decision-making within a single corporate family. Without independent cost benchmarking, determining true value for money becomes difficult.

 

 

Reputation and Risk

Internationally, the Chagoury Group has appeared in foreign compliance reviews and tax inquiries, none directly tied to Nigerian contracts but sufficient to attract enhanced due-diligence protocols from lenders. Documents from Deutsche Bank reportedly flagged the group as “politically exposed,” prompting additional scrutiny. The Ministry of Works insists that all transactions passed required checks, yet reputational risk remains intertwined with financial exposure.

Public Interest, Private Imprint

At construction sites, federal insignia often share scaffolding space with Hitech’s branding, visually merging public authority and corporate identity. For many Lagos residents, the distinction between state and contractor has blurred. The Coastal Highway’s concrete lanes thus embody both national ambition and private continuity—an infrastructure of partnership as much as pavement.

The Alliance as Governance Model

The Chagoury–Umahi relationship encapsulates Nigeria’s broader approach to development: speed achieved through concentration. Proponents argue that relying on trusted firms ensures efficiency; critics counter that it discourages competition, inflates cost, and centralizes influence. Sustainable governance will depend on whether transparency mechanisms can evolve alongside this model of accelerated delivery.

The Future of Control

As additional sections of the highway roll out, Hitech’s dominance appears set to expand into operation and maintenance phases, potentially through public-private partnerships. Without diversified procurement or clear publication of terms, Nigeria risks tethering a generation of coastal infrastructure to a single corporate network.

Conclusion — Concrete Ties

The Chagoury–Umahi Alliance is more than a professional collaboration; it is a case study in how power, policy, and construction interlock. Its advantages—speed, scale, and technical skill—are undeniable. So are its vulnerabilities: concentration, opacity, and dependency.

Each new slab of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway embodies both engineering precision and political symbolism. As the concrete hardens beneath the sun, it seals not only a road but a relationship—one that may determine for decades how Nigeria builds, and how openly it allows itself to be built.

 

Part 10: Collateral Citizens

Lives moved, homes erased, and the quiet arithmetic of compensation along Nigeria’s coastal highway.

The Human Ledger of a Mega-Project

Before the first bulldozers arrived, Okun-Ajah woke to the smell of salt and wood smoke from coastal kitchens. Today, the air carries diesel fumes and dust from crushed concrete. Coconut groves have become staging grounds for cranes, and families who once measured time by tide now measure it by the pace of demolition.

They are Nigeria’s collateral citizens—those whose displacement underwrites the nation’s most ambitious infrastructure promise. The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway seeks to link states and stimulate trade, yet its early phases have already severed thousands of smaller connections: homes, livelihoods, and the social fabric of coastal communities.

A Quiet Eviction

In October 2024, demolition began in Okun-Ajah with little ceremony. Residents received same-day notices of “Right-of-Way Clearance,” delivered by plain-clothed officials. Entire blocks fell within hours, including parts of Winhomes Global Services Estate, a housing development marketed to diaspora investors. Some owners received cheques; others received silence.

How Compensation Should Work

Nigeria’s Land Use Act (1978) and Federal Highways Act outline a clear process:

1. One month’s statutory notice before possession.
2. Valuation certified by licensed surveyors.
3. Payment prior to demolition.
4. Right of appeal against valuation or ownership findings.

On paper, these laws balance public interest with individual rights. In practice, the Coastal Highway has revealed their fragility. The Ministry of Works maintains that all verified property owners were compensated, and that presidential approval extended payments even to informal dwellers. Yet independent monitors found evidence of incomplete enumeration and inconsistent payouts. In many cleared areas, valuation teams reportedly arrived after demolition, leaving residents without documentation to contest loss.

 

 

Counting the Displaced

Between Victoria Island and Lekki–Epe, approximately 12,000 people lived within the declared right-of-way. Civil-society surveys indicate that over 4,000 structures were affected. Official records list 1,600 compensated claimants, a fraction of those displaced. Many residents lived in informal settlements excluded from payment because they lacked Certificates of Occupancy.

The mismatch exposes a legal paradox: the law protects titles, not tenure, even though informality defines much of Lagos’ coastal demography. The result is an urban citizenship graded by paperwork rather than presence.

Unequal Arithmetic

Compensation varies sharply. Property owners with registered titles reportedly received multimillion-naira payments, while traders and tenants received modest sums based on building materials, not livelihood loss. This valuation model converts human displacement into construction cost—an equation that quantifies walls but not work.

Inside the Valuation Process

Officials within the Federal Controller of Works (Lagos) office cite limited timelines and funding constraints. With clearance schedules measured in days, valuations were often provisional, pending later adjustments. In practice, few of those revisions occur once construction advances. Temporary figures become final outcomes, turning administrative haste into permanent inequity.

Missing Social Impact Assessments

The Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Act requires a Social Impact Assessment (SIA)—a study outlining resettlement, livelihood restoration, and compensation frameworks. The Coastal Highway’s publicly available EIA summary contains no such annex. The Ministry of Environment has acknowledged that the full report remains under review.

This omission contravenes international standards such as the World Bank’s Environmental and Social Framework, which mandates resettlement planning before ground-breaking. Without the SIA, compensation becomes improvised, guided more by expediency than empathy.

Gendered Impact

Women have borne the brunt of displacement. In coastal fishing communities, widows and traders who once sold smoked fish now work as day laborers on construction sites. Compensation payments often go to male titleholders, excluding female tenants and informal entrepreneurs. The loss of shelter translates into the loss of identity and economic agency.

 

Children and Education

Demolition has also disrupted schooling. In Sangotedo, Ogombo, and Abijo, at least eight primary schools have closed or relocated inland. Temporary classrooms lack sanitation and transport access, forcing some children out of education altogether. These costs—measured in learning years rather than cash—rarely appear in compensation accounts.

The Ministry’s Rationale

Officials describe displacement as an unavoidable cost of national development. Internal briefings frame it as a “short-term sacrifice for long-term gain.” The ministry views public criticism as evidence of progress, an attitude rooted in earlier megaprojects where disruption was equated with seriousness.

Legal Pushback

In July 2025, Suit No. FHC/L/CS/1189/25 was filed by 47 residents from Ogombo and Okun Mopo, alleging procedural violations and inadequate compensation. The plaintiffs argue that their constitutional right to fair hearing was breached. The case joins others—such as the Winhomes and Funso Doherty actions—turning the Coastal Highway into an ongoing legal battleground over land, process, and justice.

The Numbers Behind “Humanitarian Compensation”

Government documents show roughly ₦2 billion allocated for informal-settlement compensation in Section 1. If distributed among 2,000 dwellers, the theoretical payout would average ₦1 million per person—significant on paper, but insufficient to rebuild in Lagos’ inflated property market. Many displaced families lack bank access to cash their cheques, forcing them to sell at a discount to intermediaries.

Temporary Camps, Permanent Limbo

Inland settlements near Awoyaya and Lakowe now house hundreds of displaced families under tarpaulin roofs. Water comes from NGO-funded boreholes; power, when available, from shared generators. Announced relocation estates in Epe and Ibeju remain unbuilt. Experts describe this as transitional permanence: populations intended for six-month relocation remain adrift for years.

Beyond Lagos

In Akwa Ibom and Cross River, where later sections of the highway are mobilizing, local leaders warn of similar patterns—construction timelines preceding consultation. Federal officials have promised corrective learning, yet field engineers report that clearance often proceeds before enumeration.

 

 

The Economics of Displacement

Independent analyses estimate property and livelihood losses in the first 50 kilometers at over ₦200 billion, compared with roughly ₦30 billion in confirmed compensation—a restitution rate below 15 percent. Beyond material loss, such disparities corrode public trust. When demolition precedes documentation, citizens conclude that development is subtraction by another name.

Toward Restorative Policy

Policy experts propose that future toll revenues fund a Coastal Community Trust, allocating 2 percent of collections to rebuild schools, fisheries, and micro-enterprises. Similar schemes in Ghana dedicate a share of motorway revenue to local development. By tyingbenefit to burden, such models convert displacement from permanent loss into partial reinvestment.

Stories in the Rubble

In the cleared stretch once called Winhomes Avenue, fragments of walls and floor tiles still mark where homes stood. Some have spray-painted messages onto remaining concrete: “We were here.” Former residents walk the perimeter at dusk, watching dump trucks unload gravel over the remains of their community. Their presence, though unrecorded, is a quiet audit of what progress cost.

Conclusion — Counting the Uncounted

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will one day connect ports, cities, and economies. Yet until its human costs are openly acknowledged, its foundation remains incomplete.

Every kilometer of reinforced concrete represents not only state ambition but also private loss. The displaced rarely appear in project briefs; their stories survive only in court filings and empty lots.

Infrastructure, when done responsibly, connects people. When done carelessly, it replaces them. Unless Nigeria learns to measure progress in lives restored as well as roads built, the Coastal Highway will endure as a monument to an old equation—where the state constructs, the people absorb, and those erased become statistics beneath the dust.

 

Part 11: The Myth of Modernization

How the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway became the stage for Nigeria’s grand narrative of progress—and the illusion that concrete alone equals modernization.

The Story Nigeria Tells Itself

Each generation of Nigerian leadership builds a monument to its vision of progress.
The 1970s pursued steel at Ajaokuta; the 1990s raised Abuja’s marble skyline; today’s democracy seeks validation in a coastal road stretching across the south.
The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, presented as a national symbol of renewal, is celebrated as evidence that Nigeria can still execute at continental scale.

The launch ceremonies projected triumph: cranes framed against the Atlantic, a president promising transformation. Yet beneath the choreography lie procedural voids—opaque costs, disputed compensation, and ignored environmental protocols. The narrative of modernization thrives precisely because it replaces scrutiny with spectacle.

A Nation’s New Gospel

Since 2023, infrastructure has become the administration’s moral and economic creed. Public messaging describes the highway as a “corridor of prosperity,” a route to unity, trade, and self-reliance. Promotional videos synchronize aerial footage with orchestral scores; press statements repeat three keywords—speed, durability, legacy.

But genuine modernization demands more than motion. It requires transparency, consultation, and measurable value—traits still missing from the project’s governance structure.

Mechanization Without Modernization

The highway embodies a familiar confusion: equating the presence of machines with the progress of institutions. Earth-moving equipment signals activity, not accountability. Restrictive procurement, undisclosed financing, and suspended environmental review expose a system where performance replaces process. The result is mechanization that moves soil but not standards.

Concrete as Creed

The ministry’s insistence on rigid-pavement concrete has evolved from technical choice to ideology. Concrete lasts longer than asphalt, yet the material now functions as metaphor—proof of permanence, patriotism, and resolve.
In policy discourse, questioning cost or method is reframed as resistance to progress. This binary—builders versus doubters—turns accountability into obstruction and converts material policy into moral theatre.

The Spectacle Economy

Official ceremonies and media coverage illustrate governance as performance. Flag-offs feature choreographed testimonials and cinematic drone footage. Television specials devote minutes to engineering data and hours to praise.
In this environment, visibility replaces verification. The public receives images of progress rather than documentation of compliance.

Development Without Debate

Public participation is often portrayed as delay. Environmental hearings trail behind bulldozers; injunctions are dismissed as distraction.
This executive model of development privileges discretion over deliberation—decisions made first, justified later. It recycles a post-colonial tradition in which state action defines legitimacy and consultation becomes optional.

Metrics That Mislead

Government scorecards measure achievement inkilometers built. By that metric, the highway is a success: dozens of kilometers graded, multiple sections mobilized. Yet cost per kilometer remains among Africa’s highest, while no independent cost–benefit analysis or traffic study has been published.
Length alone has become the currency of legitimacy, even when financial sustainability and local welfare remain untested.

Citizens as Audience

For affected communities, modernization arrived without notice. Many first learned of the project through media rather than official communication.
Displacement was recast as patriotic contribution; loss was narrated as sacrifice. The result is symbolic participation—citizens invited to applaud rather than consent.

Technology as Ornament

Project documents invoke “digital design,” “3-D mapping,” and “smart concrete.” In practice, procurement and compensation still rely on handwritten ledgers and manual valuation.
Technology functions as decorative vocabulary: signaling modernity while concealing an analogue bureaucracy.

The Politics of Permanence

Concrete’s durability appeals to politicians seeking legacy. Physical infrastructure endures beyond electoral cycles, serving as monument to authority. Roads photograph better than reforms; bridges are ribbon-cuttable proof of achievement. In this sense, the Lagos–Calabar project is less transport network than political sculpture—a material embodiment of continuity in a country where institutions remain transient.

 

 

Technocrats Displaced

Nigeria has capable engineers, planners, and economists, but decision-making on the highway has often concentrated around contractors and political offices. Internal design units and academic reviewers report limited involvement. The pattern illustrates techno-politics—technical language employed to validate predetermined outcomes rather than to guide them.

Global Theatre, Local Reality

Across the world, nations stage infrastructure as proof of competence—America’s stimulus roads, China’s Belt and Road, Africa’s cross-border corridors. Nigeria’s coastal highway joins this global theatre.
The Deutsche Bank financing reassures investors that Nigeria can still raise credit. Yet for citizens, the dividends of modernity remain abstract: power grids falter, transport networks decay, and public services stagnate. The new highway moves freight, but not faith in governance.

Why the Myth Endures

The modernization myth survives because it is politically useful. It converts skepticism into cynicism and substitutes awe for accountability. Each kilometer becomes metaphor—evidence that the nation is advancing, even if the data say otherwise. Progress becomes a feeling, not a fact.

Echoes of Earlier Illusions

Nigeria’s landscape is littered with prior monuments to ambition:

• Ajaokuta Steel Complex, once industrial hope, now largely dormant.
• Abuja Light Rail, launched amid celebration, later suspended.
• East-West Road, decades in construction.

Each promised transformation, each revealed systemic inertia. The coastal highway risks joining that lineage if governance reform does not accompany concrete pour.

Signs of Re-Awakening

Civic engagement is slowly challenging the myth. Journalists and watchdog groups have filed Freedom-of-Information requests; lawsuits such as those by Winhomes Global Services and Funso Doherty seek judicial scrutiny of procurement. Online campaigns translating engineering data into viral hashtags have forced limited disclosures—a small but significant breach in the wall of opacity.

Redefining Modernity

True modernization would mean open procurement portals, digital audits, integrated transport planning, and guaranteed social safeguards.
Under that framework, roads are outcomes of modern governance, not substitutes for it. Modern nations build because their institutions are transparent; Nigeria often builds to appear modern.

Conclusion — Beyond the Myth

The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will soon gleam in satellite images, its concrete stretching like a silver thread along the coast. Yet its ultimate legacy will depend not on endurance of material but on integrity of method.

Modernization is not the noise of machinery or the shine of new pavement—it is the quiet discipline of accountable government. It measures success in trust restored, in data published, in communities heard.

Until those measures define progress, Nigeria’s coastal road remains both achievement and allegory: a nation racing forward on solid concrete, still searching for a solid definition of modernity itself.

Part 12: The Reckoning

After the concrete has set and the cameras move on, Nigeria must decide whether the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will stand as progress — or as proof that power still travels faster than truth.

The Morning After the Applause

At dawn, the new concrete lanes of the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway shimmer faintly under the Atlantic mist. Cranes idle, sand trucks hum, and the air holds the optimism that always follows monumental works.

To many Nigerians, this is the long-awaited image of a modern nation—visible, engineered, irreversible. To others, it is the familiar outline of governance repeated: execution without explanation, progress measured in square meters rather than social trust.

This closing chapter gathers the evidence from across the series to ask a final question: after the concrete cures, what exactly has Nigeria built?

The Anatomy of a Mega-Project

At approximately 700 kilometers and an estimated ₦15 trillion ($11 billion) total cost, the coastal highway is the largest infrastructure undertaking in the nation’s history.
It was designed to link six southern states, ease pressure on the East–West Road, andcatalyze trade along the Gulf of Guinea.

Yet from inception, it has embodied Nigeria’s recurring paradox: ambition without architecture.

Key verified data:

• Section 1 (Lagos): 47.47 km, ₦1.068 trillion.
• Sections 2–3B: ₦2.9 trillion combined.
• Loan facility: $747 million arranged by Deutsche Bank, guaranteed by the federal treasury.
• Primary contractor: Hitech Construction Ltd, selected through restrictive tendering.

What remains undisclosed are the unit-rate breakdowns, variation clauses, and repayment schedules—the technical DNA of accountability.

Twelve Parts, One Pattern

Across earlier chapters, this investigation uncovered a pattern woven through bureaucracy and politics:

• Procurement opacity masked as efficiency;
• Financing secrecy disguised as innovation;
• Environmental shortcuts justified by urgency;
• Displacementrationalised as progress;
• Oversight diluted across agencies.

Individually, each failure appears administrative. Collectively, they form a culture—opacity institutionalized as method.

The Architecture of Avoidance

Officials repeatedly invoked urgency: the need to “cut red tape” before costs escalate. That argument—development as emergency—has become a governance reflex.
In Nigeria’s public-works playbook, every project begins as an exception and ends as a precedent.

The Bureau of Public Procurement confirms that restrictive tendering now represents a significant share of federal infrastructure awards. The Coastal Highway is its template: the speed of delivery achieved through the compression of oversight.

The Price of Speed

Acceleration multiplies risk:

• Environmental: erosion and habitat loss;
• Fiscal: foreign-denominated debt without transparent repayment;
• Social: communities cleared before compensation;
• Institutional: citizens taught that inquiry equals obstruction.

Speed delivers ribbon cuttings today and litigation tomorrow—a cycle familiar from decades of Nigerian public works.

The Silence Between Agencies

Responsibility for environmental and financial review is scattered among the Ministry of Environment, NIWA, NIMASA, and the Auditor-General’s Office. Each acknowledges incomplete information from the Ministry of Works. None have issued comprehensive oversight reports.

Fragmentation breeds impunity: when everyone is custodian, no one is accountable. The system’s quietness is not absence of data but absence of ownership.

 

 

Debt Beneath the Concrete

Under the EPC + F model, Hitech arranges financing while government guarantees repayment. Though styled as private-sector participation, the liability is public.
If projected tolls fail to meet targets, analysts estimate potential exposure exceeding ₦2 trillion over ten years. Without published terms, citizens cannot verify the fiscal horizon they are inheriting.

The structure echoes prior megaprojects whose “contractor loans” later matured into sovereign debts. The physical road may endure longer than the paperwork that explains it.

The Courtroom Coast

As of October 2025, at least five lawsuits contest the project—covering procurement legality, compensation, and land rights. Construction continues regardless.
Nigeria is thus building and litigating simultaneously, a contradiction that turns development into a courtroom marathon.

The Human Reckoning

Behind the contracts are lives unsettled. In Okun-Ajah, Ogombo, and Abijo, families displaced for the right-of-way now rent further inland, their incomes halved. Schools once on the route stand abandoned.

Compensation, where paid, rarely restores livelihoods. Informal settlers remain outside the legal frame, surviving under tarpaulins in Awoyaya and Lakowe. For them, “development” has come to mean permanent waiting.

When state action outpaces empathy, public trust erodes—the very infrastructure upon which democracy rests.

Environmental Debt

Scientific monitoring by the University of Lagos Lagoon Research Centre records continuing shoreline retreat between Lekki and Ibeju.
Each new embankment deflects wave energy onto unprotected beaches.
Climate-adaptation funds that might strengthen natural defenses are redirected to maintain reclaimed terrain.
Nature, unconsulted, becomes creditor; erosion is its interest payment.

A Mirror for Governance

The coastal highway is not an anomaly—it is a mirror. Its sequence of ambition, opacity, and improvisation reflects the operating code of Nigerian administration: performance without transparency, execution without evaluation.

If precedent holds, the eventual audit will confirm what current silence conceals. But by then, debt will be fixed, and accountability deferred to memory.

The Reckoning Itself

Reckoning does not mean retribution. It means recognition—of what progress costs when process is ignored.
The lessons are specific:

1. Transparency must precede excavation. Publish full costs, financing, and contractor data before construction.
2. Procurement law must regain authority. Exceptions cannot be the norm.
3. Environmental and social impact are engineering variables, not footnotes.
4. No project should depend on personal credibility. Institutions, not individuals, must guarantee delivery.
5. Oversight must be continuous. Journalists and courts cannot remain the only auditors of public works.

The Path Forward

Analysts recommend a National Infrastructure Disclosure Portal, modeled on Kenya’s iProcure, listing every federal contract, milestone, and financing partner.
They also call for an Independent Project Audit Office, funded by parliament, mandated to verify costs and physical progress quarterly.

Such measures appear procedural, yet procedure is the true architecture of democracy. Without it, every highway becomes a shortcut through accountability.

Global Lessons

Nations that mastered large-scale infrastructure—Singapore, South Korea, the UAE—did so through institutions, not charisma. Their ministers release audit sheets, not slogans.
Nigeria’s model, reliant on political champions, delivers momentum but not continuity. When personalities exit, oversight collapses.

The Legacy Question

Decades from now, the coastal highway will carry freight, commuters, and stories. What it also carries—trust or cynicism—depends on the decisions made today.
If transparency reforms take root, the project could become a model of course correction. If secrecy persists, it will join Ajaokuta, Mambilla, and the East–West Road in the archive of unfinished reckonings.

Conclusion — Counting Forward

Reckoning is Nigeria’s opportunity, not its punishment.
To prove that progress need not silence scrutiny, that democracy can construct without concealment, and that concrete can coexist with conscience.

Transparency will not slow the nation; it will steady it.
Because the ultimate measure of development is not the road itself but the confidence of those who walk it.

If this highway finally teaches that truth, then the trillions poured into it will have purchased more than pavement—they will have bought a turning point.
Otherwise, history will engrave a harsher verdict across the shoreline:

A nation that built the road to its own doubts.

 

References

TheCable. (2024, April 10). Umahi counters Atiku’s claim, says Lagos–Calabar highway costs N4bn per kilometre, not N22bn.TheCable.https://www.thecable.ng/umahi-counters-atikus-claim-says-lagos-calabar-highway-costs-n4bn-per-kilometre-not-n22bn/

Lest We Forget Nigeria. (2024, May 2). The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway project.Lest We Forget Nigeria.https://www.lestweforgetnigeria.com/the-lagos-calabar-coastal-highway-project

Vanguard. (2025, October 5). Coastal highway: Stop misinforming Nigerians about demolition dispute, investors tell Umahi.Vanguard Nigeria.https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/10/coastal-highway-stop-misinforming-nigerians-about-demolition-dispute-investors-tell-umahi/

The Guardian Nigeria. (2025, September 28). Court advises parties to maintain status quo in $250m Lagos coastal road suit.The Guardian Nigeria.https://guardian.ng/features/law/court-advises-parties-to-maintain-status-quo-in-250m-lagos-coastal-road-suit/

Vanguard. (2025, October 2). Lagos–Calabar highway: Diaspora investors fault Umahi’s ultimatum.Vanguard Nigeria.https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/10/lagos-calabar-highway-diaspora-investors-fault-umahis-ultimatum/

Reuters. (2025, July 10). Nigeria secures $747 million Deutsche Bank-led syndicated loan for coastal highway.Reuters.https://www.reuters.com/world/africa/nigeria-secures-747-million-deutsche-bank-led-syndicated-loan-coastal-highway-2025-07-10/

Vanguard. (2025, June 22). Coastal road dispute: Foreign investors sue AGF, Umahi, Hitech for $250m.Vanguard Nigeria.https://www.vanguardngr.com/2025/06/coastal-road-dispute-foreign-investors-sue-agf-umahi-hitech-for-250m/

Nairametrics. (2025, August 1). FEC approves N2 trillion for Sokoto–Badagry highway sections, N1.65 trillion for Lagos–Calabar coastal road.Nairametrics.https://nairametrics.com/2025/08/01/fec-approves-n2-trillion-for-sokoto-badagry-highway-sections-n1-65-trillion-for-lagos-calabar-coastal-road/

Africa Digital News, New York