The presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, Donald Duke, has described the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway as one of the misplaced priorities of the administration of President Bola Tinubu.
Mr Duke said Nigeria lacked the financial capacity to complete the project, predicting that the highway might not extend beyond the Epe area of Lagos State.
The former governor of Cross River State made the remarks during an interview on ARISE Television’s Prime Time programme on Tuesday.
He argued that government spending should reflect the country’s current economic realities, maintaining that some ongoing projects did not represent the most prudent use of scarce public resources.
“I’ll bring this up. Take the Lagos-Calabar highway. I know the country cannot afford it,” he said.
“You cannot build a road on the coast from Lagos to Calabar. I mean, you can’t even go through Bayelsa. Bayelsa is swamp. Even Yenagoa, the capital, is swamp. You’ll probably have to build about 100 or 200 bridges to go through those swamps.”
Mr Duke said there was already a road linking Lagos and Calabar, arguing that the Federal Government should prioritise rehabilitating and upgrading the existing route rather than embarking on a new coastal highway.
“There is already a road to Calabar. I’ve driven from Lagos to Calabar several times. If the road is poor, fix it,” he said.
“I don’t think that road is going to go beyond Epe, and I think the road serves other purposes because I drove once on the road and all I saw on the right flank going towards Epe was land reclamation and all that.”
He argued that funds earmarked for the project could be better deployed to sectors with a more direct impact on the lives of Nigerians, particularly electricity and healthcare.
“The amount going to be spent on that road could be better spent providing electricity or upgrading your healthcare system,” he said.
Mr Duke also criticised what he described as inadequate funding for the health and education sectors, saying both systems required significantly greater investment.
“Last year, the capital budget that was released for health was barely N36 million. This came from the minister himself. That’s pathetic for a country of 230 million people.
“Not to talk about the schooling system that is hardly funded. So you prioritise, focus on your priorities, recalibrate your revenue system,” he said.
