The transformative Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is mired in endless controversies. This is the fate of great monuments and, I dare say, great leaders. So, my primary concerns here are not the hullabaloos about its actual cost and absence of biddings or, its ever changing designs as it meanders through coast and land.
My interest here is its hugely successful naming ceremony. Africans take such a monumental event as the naming ceremony of a child, serious otherwise, it could be regarded a bastard. Fittingly, the projected 750-kilometre road has been named by the Tinubu Presidency as the “President Bola Ahmed Tinubu Coastal Highway.” Federal Ministry of Works Minister ‘Professor’ David Umahi explained that the Federal Government decided to so name the highway because President Tinubu dreamt of the project twenty seven years ago when he was Lagos State Governor.
Umahi said: “It is one thing to dream and another thing to have the grace of God for you to actualize that your dream.” True. But has the coastal road, said by Umahi to be 47.4 kilometres completed from the Lagos end and, 30 kilometres nearing completion at the Calabar end, be said to have been actualized? The Assistant Chief Engineer in the Ministry, Mr.
Itam Patrick had in April, 2026 announced to Nigerians that the road will be completed in thirty six months; that is in the next three years. If that be the case, what is the hurry in naming a road that is less than seven percent completed? The Yorubas counsel that what you want to name a child, remains within you until it is born.
If Umahi’s logic is that the highway is named after President Tinubu because he dreamt about it and is constructing it, what is the logic in government tearing down the Abubakar Imam name of the airport in Minna and replacing it on Monday, March 11, 2024 with that of President Tinubu? The level of sycophancy and falsehood on the matter of this airport is quite amazing. For instance, the Federal Ministry of Information and National Orientation stated on its official website as at Sunday, July 26, 2026 that: “The Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Airport, Minna was built by the administration of Umaru Bago in Niger State and named after the President.” The truth is that this airport was built over thirty five years ago and officially commissioned on June 20, 1990 by then Head of State, General Ibrahim Babangida.
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