Donald Duke Questions Tinubu Over Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party, Donald Duke, has criticised President Bola Tinubu over the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, questioning the decision to begin the project from Victoria Island rather than Badagry.

Duke, a former governor of Cross River State, raised the concerns during an appearance on the Naija Unfiltered podcast, posted on Saturday.

The former governor argued that if the project was intended to connect Lagos with Calabar, construction should have started from Badagry, which he described as the appropriate starting point of Lagos in the South-West.

He also questioned the decision to reclaim land around Victoria Island as part of the project, arguing that such expenditure could have been avoided by starting the highway from Badagry.

“If you’re doing the Lagos to Calabar highway, you should start at Badagry. That’s where Lagos starts in the South-West, not from Victoria Island,” Duke said.

He added, “When you’re building a road from Lagos to Calabar but the focus on the Lagos end is from Victoria Island. And at the same time, you are sandfilling it.”

Duke, who served as Cross River governor between 1999 and 2007, acknowledged his personal relationship with Tinubu and praised the President’s determination and resilience.

“President Tinubu is my friend. See, I like his guts. I admit it. He’s a determined person,” he said.

However, he stressed that their friendship would not prevent him from publicly challenging the President when he disagreed with his policies.

“But I don’t like where you’re taking us. So, you don’t stop being my friend but I will challenge you that where we are going, we are all going to fall into a ditch,” Duke said.

The former governor also questioned the priority given to the coastal highway, particularly amid the condition of existing roads across the country.

He argued that the resources committed to the project could instead have been used to rehabilitate existing roads in Lagos and Cross River states.

Duke said the project was estimated to cost about N7.5bn per kilometre, describing the expenditure as difficult to justify given the country’s infrastructure needs.

“So, you take on this road, the amount of money you’ve spent so far literally could have fixed all the existing roads between Lagos and Calabar,” he said.

In May, Minister of Works David Umahi said the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway would cost N7.5bn per kilometre for a standard two-lane federal highway.

Umahi explained that the first 47.47-kilometre section, designed as a six-lane road, was estimated at N1.067tn.

According to the minister, when the cost is adjusted from six lanes to the standard two-lane federal highway specification, the equivalent cost comes to about N7.5bn per kilometre.

The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway remains one of the Federal Government’s major infrastructure projects, linking coastal communities across several states from Lagos towards Calabar.