The Federal Government has hinted that the construction of coastal routes in Nigeria has the potential to attract foreign investment and contribute to a stronger naira.
The Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi, gave the hint at the unveiling of the new design routes for the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project in Lagos. According to Umahi, the government’s plan to improve infrastructure is ultimately to aim for an economic revolution in Nigeria.
He said, “We talked about our economy, that it needs foreign investments. These roads are going to be constructed with concrete pavements, and it’s CPC+F, which means that there is foreign investment that will come in, and this foreign investment will strengthen and stabilize the naira.
It’s going to connect the ongoing Lagos-Badagry routes that is being done by the federal government and state government. There is also another route, which is the Enugu-Abakaliki-Ogoja-Cameroun-African Trans-Sahara route. The coastal routes is also going to connect.
He said that the coastal routes, which would facilitate trade within Nigeria and potentially boost economic growth, would allow ships to directly access the deep seaport, eliminating the need for expensive transloading due to insufficient water depth.
And many ships that were paid for transloading right now from Togo, from the way the sea had insufficient water depth, we’re going to be sending them money because this coastal route is going to be an evacuation corridor for that deep seaport.
So, no more transloading. They go straight to the deep seaport and are offloaded, and you can have your goods. If you’re going to Northern part of Nigeria, you just come straight to Badagry and then now to Sokoto.
