Within 24 hours this week, the same minister described the same road in two different ways. On Monday, October 12, Works Minister David Umahi said President Tinubu had directed that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway follow the existing East-West Road from Ondo into Edo state, quoting the president as saying, “Divert; do not do any new alignments.” On Tuesday, he said there had been no realignment at all. The president, he explained, had added 400 kilometres to a 750-kilometre project, and the road was intact. He blamed “mischief makers” for the confusion.
Whichever description is right, the road Nigerians were promised was a new highway along the Atlantic coast. What exists today is 47.47 kilometres in Lagos, reported complete and awaiting commissioning, and a second 55-kilometre section due next month. That is about 6% of the route finished, or roughly 14% once Section 2 is done. Beyond that is a long stretch still being surveyed, redrawn and argued over by the engineers, communities, and politicians it will pass through.
When Business Verge visited the completed Lagos section, we found cracks in the pavement which is a question of safety. We were not the first to question the road’s condition. Since 2025, posts and videos have circulated about damage, flooding and potholes on completed stretches. In September 2025, Umahi said no completed works were damaged and that what people saw was sand-filling and consolidation after rain. In June, responding to reports of flooding and potholes, he acknowledged water had collected in some depressed sections and said corrective work was under way, while attributing water on the median to a design provision for a future railway line. In July, he rejected claims that the road was worsening flooding in nearby communities and blamed poor drainage and refuse dumping. Cracks alone do not prove a defect. The road uses continuously reinforced concrete, which is designed to form fine cracks held tight by steel. Engineers watch for wide cracks, broken edges and punchouts.
That is the larger question behind this story. The highway was sold as a trade corridor, a toll-funded asset and a legacy project. This piece asks what it was meant to capture, what it has captured so far, and what it means for the average Nigerian and the wider economy.
What the project actually is
The highway began in 2024 as a roughly 700-kilometre project and is now described as 750 kilometres, running from Victoria Island through nine states to Calabar. The contractor is Hitech Construction, on an arrangement that combines engineering, construction and financing. Section 1 is a concrete dual carriageway with five lanes each way, a reserved corridor for a future rail line, solar lighting and CCTV. Later sections were cut from ten lanes to six to lower costs.
The money came from lenders rather than the budget. A $747 million loan closed in July 2025 for Section 1, and $1.126 billion was signed in December 2025 for Section 2, underwritten by First Abu Dhabi Bank and Afreximbank with insurance cover. Analysts described it as “productive debt,” meant to be repaid from tolls and trade efficiency rather than recurrent state spending.
The political landscape
Politically, the road is now contested on three fronts. The government says the changes are engineering decisions: deep pits, soft soil and flooding along the East-West Road. Opposition figures say the project’s scope, cost and payments have never been properly explained. Atiku Abubakar, now a presidential candidate for the ADC, demanded disclosure of contracts, payments and a reported $20 billion loan, which he says his camp learned of through “intelligence” and which the government has not confirmed. The Peter Obi media office and the Makinde campaign have asked for independent audits. Femi Falana argued that “the coastal road has now become a land road.”
The third front is geography. Ilaje and Itsekiri leaders say their coastal communities in Ondo and Delta were told the terrain was too difficult, while Lagos, whose coastal ground is similar, received the first stretch. They also argue that the inland route will cost more per kilometre than the coastal one. The road begins beside Eko Atlantic, and its contractor built that city’s sea wall, which critics cite when asking whom the first stretch serves. The government’s answer is that the highway is a national trade corridor. Donald Duke called the full route “unbuildable,” while Bayelsa Governor Douye Diri said it is “buildable and possible.” Several of these critics are also 2027 candidates, so their claims need checking against documents, not just statements.
The economic value it was meant to capture
On paper, the logic was commercial. The corridor connects Eko Atlantic, the Lekki Deep Sea Port, the free zone and the Dangote refinery, with a planned link toward the Trans-Saharan route at the Calabar end. Tolls collected by the contractor were part of the financing. Umahi projected payback in about 10 years, then about 15 at 50,000 vehicles a day. The government has also claimed the highway will add $45 billion to GDP over five years, a figure we have not independently verified.
What it has not captured yet
So far, the returns are still on paper. Tolling was promised from December 2025, then after an April 2026 inauguration. We found no evidence it has begun, and toll rates had not been approved when last reported. Section 1 was promised complete by January, then April, and is only now awaiting commissioning. The unbuilt remainder includes the Ondo stretch now tied to the East-West Road, which the government says it will raise by about two metres. Umahi has also said Hitech kept working on some sections without payment, a sign of strain in the financing that carries the project.
The average Nigerian
For most Nigerians, the road so far is something that happens to them before it serves them. Communities along the route have seen demolitions, repeated realignments and compensation they say covers crops but not buildings, according to community leaders and the Foundation for Investigative Journalism (FIJ). The government has said it paid billions in compensation. Residents near the completed stretch have complained of flooding. The stretch in use connects a prime property and port corridor, so the honest answer on who benefits today is those who travel that corridor. Tolls, once they begin, will fall on the same users. For everyone else, the cost arrives sooner than the benefit: a share of a $1.873 billion debt across about 103 kilometres, serviced from revenue that has not yet started.
The broader economy
That debt works out to roughly $18 million per kilometre of financing, though financing is not the final cost and Section 1 is a ten-lane concrete road with rail provision. One analysis put Benin’s coastal road at about $3.4 million per kilometre, but the specifications differ, which is exactly why a published cost breakdown matters. Official per-kilometre costs have moved from ₦4 billion in 2024 to about ₦7.5 billion, and total estimates range from ₦2.8 trillion to ₦15 trillion depending on the source and date. With no public cost breakdown or independent audit, investors, lenders and taxpayers are being asked to trust a number that keeps changing. If tolls fall short, the balance lands on the budget, which is why disclosure matters as much as concrete.
The question that remains
The coastal highway may yet become the trade corridor it was sold as, and the first stretch is real, finished and, by the government’s account, sound. But a road that was meant to open the coast now runs partly inland, and its revenue, cost and route are all still being explained. Whether it becomes the legacy project it was sold as, or the clearest example of a flagship whose scope kept shifting, depends on documents and tolls that do not yet exist.
