By Rev. Fr. Gerald Nwafor
The government of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has decided to build a coastal highway from Lagos to Calabar. This highway, according to what they said, will help bring development, civilization, economic growth, and income to the towns and villages around the road.
One can ask a simple question, if you are hungry and you have 10 naira in your pocket will you plan to borrow money and kill a cow or go directly to the grocery shop and buy bread and at least stay alive? The government of Nigeria is planning to build a coastal highway that will cost 15 trillion Naira and will take 8 years to complete.
We know that the government of Nigeria cannot do a project that will take 8 years because the lifespan of a government is 4 years. There is no guarantee that they will be in power for 8 years but let’s assume the 8 years is a possibility. How are we sure that this project will not destroy the aquatic life because of the amount of cement and chemicals that will be used in constructing the bridges and the highways? On the other hand, let’s say that we have 15 trillion, which they do not have at this point, should we not first of all go and rebuild the local roads that are death traps?
From Lagos to Onitsha, from Lagos to Abuja, from Lagos to Benin, from Lagos to anywhere in Nigeria? The roads are death traps because none is completed. All the big cities in Nigeria are in dire need of one single good road, from Kanu to Zaia, from Zaria to Sokoto, from Sokoto to Maiduguri all in a deep mess.
It is not out of place then when people are asking, how is the government overlooking these simple projects that will make life easy and they are going to build the coastal highway that will make their life difficult and impede on the welfare of Nigerians.
I don’t think anybody is advising the Nigerian government properly. I read some of the responses from the ministers who came out to defend the government, he sounded like a broken record. The former governor of Ebony state, Davis Umahi, who is now the Minister for Works, claims that 30% of the money will come from the government and 70% will come from private individuals who will recuperate their money when the project is finished.
Meanwhile, we have heard this kind of lie before during the Dangote refinery project where the government said that 70% of the refinery was sponsored by the government and when the people started shouting, government said he had almost paid back the loan. My eyes cannot see what my ears are hearing.
The Minister of Works said that there would be a toll gate after the construction so that the private sector could get their money back. This makes people start asking questions about how the contract was procured.
Senator David Umahi could not even give a proper account. When he was asked about the papers that initiated the procurement of the budget, he said that we are only doing 47 kilometers now, and as for the other kilometers, we will be planning. Building a coastal highway without a plan on the full 700 kilometers. We have seen this before during the Buhari presidency when a rail wail was constructed without a destination.
That piece of project is still languishing somewhere in the bush. I remember when we were learning English the first statement we constructed was “Who is fooling who?” That time I thought ‘who’ was a person, and I said if I saw ‘who’ I would tell him or her that ‘who’ was fooling ‘who’.David Umahi should come clean and explain to the people of Nigeria everything about this project.
I don’t want to get involved with the people who won the project and have a business relationship with the President. That should be a story for another day. The most important thing now is if the government wants to continue, they should give the Nigerian people, especially the people living along the coastal regions, whose houses and businesses would be heavily impacted, a proper and clear explanation.
Besides simple opinions, I suggest that they should just leave that project and face the public roads we have in Nigeria and help people to get from one pool to the next in one hour not in eight years. When one listens to the argument of government officials about how important this coastal highway is to the economy, one would begin to wonder whether these people are living in the same Nigeria where the price of gasoline is now 1000 naira and the price of rice is off the roof.
As if to say these pains are not enough, the government just said that there will be taxes on our money for cyber security. In the local parlance, we always say, “I don’t think there is nothing you will tell a wife and say don’t tell your husband.” These government officials I’m sure, think we are not thinking and that everything they said will be okay and OK Sir.
Somebody said in one of the television stations that Nigerians are sitting on a keg of gunpowder I don’t want to believe that because the people of Eastern Nigeria knew very well the pains of war. Therefore, I do not expect the government of the day to ignore the pains of the Nigerian public because it is a dangerous ignorance.
