FG Announces Completion Of 47km First Section Of Coastal Road, Payment Of N16B As Compensation

OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos 

Engr. Mrs. Olukorede Kesha, the Lagos Controller of Works at the Federal Ministry of Works has announced that the first section of the Lagos-Calabar coastal road, spanning about 47 kilometres from Ahmadu Bello Way to Eleko has been completed.

She equally said about 500 property owners out of the 700 enumerated for the demolition of their properties during the construction of the first section were paid a total of N16B as Compensation as against the N8B originally budgeted.

The Controller made these announcements on Sunday at the Stakeholders Meeting held with residents of the towns hosting the second section of the road from Eleko Village to Ode Omi town, saying that over 1500 other properties along the coastal road's right of way were avoided from being demolished for economic reasons and on the instruction of President Bola Tinubu.

David Umahi, the Minister of Works while corroborating her statements further said, "President Tinubu instructed me to do everything necessary to avoid the demolition of properties in the course of the construction because of the economic implications that goes with it. To keep the records straight, I want the public to know that the much noised Landmark property was not touched, but few shanties surrounding the area and you can see from the drone images that his building is still standing.

"To further avoid destroying properties on the original road alignment we had to part the road into two from before it was joined together after several kilometres, leading to redesigning of the road plan to follow new routes that presented new challenges. Along the new path we had to go through a garbage dump that was up to ten metres deep which had to be excavated and filled again.

"At kilometre 19 we encountered the Cyber cables which were also on the gazzeted right of way of the road construction and much noise was generated by the public as if we deliberately veered the road towards the cables. The public should however realize that the Federal Government has no power over land matters, so we had to apply to the Lagos State Government to approve new route for the road away from those cables and was approved and today the cables are their intact." He emphasized.

Umahi also decried the allegation made by a certain Nigerian lady resident in the United States who claimed that her properties worth $250m was destroyed, using a drone image, he showed the stakeholders the state of the property before the road construction got there, revealing an empty swampy space of land that was fenced and a gate house that was now partly eaten by the road constructed and has been enumerated for compensation.

He further clarified that it is the Lagos State Government has the right of acquisition of properties in the overiding interest of public good, but his Ministry is still going out of its way to pay compensations. He therefore called for investigations of the claims made by the woman in respect to the amount she is claiming over the property in bid to unravel if she has not been scammed.

Another official in the Ministry said works in the second section of road is ongoing at a rate that would astound the public, stressing that most of the property obstacles encountered in the first section would no longer be the issue.

Dany Abboud, the Managing Director of Hitech Construction Company Limited gave a breakdown of the road project and the commitment inputed by his company to ensure completion of project in record, while revealing the Calabar end of the project has already commenced.

David Umahi commended the President Tinubu for initiating the project, saying, "this project saying is beyond road construction, it is an investment that is going to boost the economic fortunes of the country, reduce traffic time and take away traffic bottlenecks from our present busy highways across the country. I must commend Hitech also for demonstrating efficiency and total commitment to the road construction."