Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway: Tinubu, bringing to life the concepts of two great past leaders.
Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway: Tinubu, bringing to life the concepts of two great past leaders.
The Lagos -Calabar coastal highway that is being built today by the Tinubu administration was first conceptualized in 1955 by late Chief Festus Okotie -Eboh who was at the time the federal commissioner of labour before he was appointed as minister of finance in 1957.
During the 2023 presidential campaign in Calabar in, the governor of the state at the time, Prof Ben Ayade secured an undertaking from the then APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and said “the coastal highway is going to be the game changer for socio-economic status of Cross River as it is bound to add value to our rich agricultural produce and boost tourism traffic to our unique tourism sites”
And two years after he became president, Tinubu started the construction of the protect conceptualized 60 years ago and the current governor of Cross River state, Bassey Otu said “Nothing is more gratifying at the moment than the cheering news of the commencement of the highway which is bound to ensure our rapid transformation in all facets of economic development by driving traffic of investors and tourists.”
At a gathering in Yenogoa on April 31, 2025, the governors of Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, and Rivers states lauded President Bola Tinubu for initiating the construction of the coastal highway.
In the early ’80s, Alhaji Shehu Shagari proposed the Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway. President Shagari wanted its construction to start from Badagry and end in Sokoto but the Tinubu government started it in Sokoto and to end in Badagry.
The Super Highway is a 1,068 kilometer long which passes through Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo qhe Lagos states.
As the governor of Lagos state, Tinubu raised the issue 25 years ago but a governor has no power to construct such massive federal government highway.
Shagari named it Badagry-Sokoto Super Highway but Tinubu changed it to Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway in a show of reciprocity to a Sokoto born president who wanted its construction to start from the other end as the name implied.
If he can see in death, Shagari will surely appreciate the wisdom and show of unity, love and respect exhibited by Tinubu.
