₦airaland Forum

KayyDee:
My brother, I really applaud your kinda indepth analysis of how the road can help boost development, economic activities, tourism, etc along the SW corridor.

It shows you are sound.

However, the bone of contention was never about whether the coastal road will be beneficial or not.

Even Obi himself first acknowledged that it's a good idea. But one whose time is not now.

But the issues here are:

1) TIMING.

You know as they say, timing is everything.

Because a car is definitely good for any family, does not mean you must buy a car, and possibly neglect training of your children in good schools, which is much more important in order of scale of preference.

Or borrow beyond your means just to own that car.

Also, because marriage is good, does not mean that a 19 year old boy will now rush into it.

This will make the big struggle and struggle to keep meeting his new responsibilities which increase every year as children are born, and as the grow.

Whereas, he could have sent his younger years ideally preparing for a better future, before taking on marriage.


There's always best time for anything.

Either for financial reasons, or maturity reasons or preparedness.

2) COST.
The cost is obviously too much.
In your heart of hearts, you know this.

It's because our politicians know that Nigerians are too dull, that's why you dare tell us that a 10-lane 47 KM road will cost around 1.1 trillion naira.

3) COMPLETION TIME

The FG has said that this 47km will take them 3 years to complete.

This means that, that small "phase one" will be completed around the twilight of BATs administration in 2027, all things being equal.

Now, assuming they keep to that timing, it means that the administration will most likely not construct beyond ONDO state side, even if they get a second term in office.

Now, when they leave office, say in 2031 (assuming without conceding), then this road would have been just less than 100km done.

Therefore, at least 600km, representing roughly 86% will still remain.

Then (in all honesty) tell me how they will have achieved their aim of this connecting Calabar, or even truly opening up that corridor.

It would just be a kinda "South West" coastal road at best....
connecting just some Ondo and Ogun people to Lagos.

Then the Niger-Delta people who some are already claiming that Obi and his people do not want them to benefit from this project, will ultimately not benefit, at least in any near or medium term.

Again, the total cost of this road is put at around16 trillion Naira.

At that cost, even if Nigeria budgets "ONE trillion naira" annually on that road (which you and I know is not gonna happen), it will take at least 16 years to complete that road.

But in reality, mark my words, the way Nigeria works, plus based on our current wealth level and budgeting patterns, it will take minimum of 20 years to do that road (that's minimum, bcus it could easily go near 30 years)

Again, tell me whether Nigeria currently has the patience to wait 20+ to begin to enjoy the benefits of such humongous investments)

Don't forget, the money for the road is being borrowed, I believe.

So, would you say it will be good to borrow 16 trillion, and spend upwards of 20 years on this road, when we need the money in electricity generation and transmission projects, which will in turn immediately improve our fortunes?

Or, in Agriculture, and even further investments In our oil and gas fields, and pipelines?


4) OPPORTUNITY COSTS

A road that will not immediately contribute much to Nigeria's financial well being at least till in the next 3 years, should it then all to create massive job losses and business losses?

That's why the landmark story is important.

Yes, his main buildings were not touched, but that business thrives chiefly bcus of the beach front. Now, that's gone.

It's also part of an ecosystem involving several other businesses, who most had their own structures pulled down.

Even if you truly compensate them well. They may not successfully create another big businesses in the short term to help replace the thousands of job being lost right now.

For me, I don't think it's because landmark owner is an Igbo man though.

But I believe there's a bigger plan. I won't want to dabble into it now.

FINALLY,
I thing that BAT and his close people know this truth.

It's their minions who don't know the game being played.

It will seem that BAT wants to do the Lagos part unfailingly.

This is because it has enormous benefit to lagos' new industrial zone, Ibeju Lekki.

It will make it easier to access, the new sea port, proposed new airport, Dangote refinery, a whole lot of new real estate developments along that Ibeju axis.

So, for BAT, it's most likely a deft political and economic win to his personal interest, and to some extent that if Lagos state

Lagos government has at some point planned to do the road by themselves, but I think the cost has been putting them off.

Now, it's an opportunity to use federal might to do the road.

Please, save these words, and refer to them in the future.

Also, there's the talk of being a biz partner to the owner of that company handling the project.

I won't say more on that here right now.

Ordinarily, if we use the money budgeted for this road to quickly mfix/complete many of the abandoned road projects in Nigeria, I tell you this, it will impact much more on our economy in the next 2 to 3 years than the coastal road.

Remember, we can even easily do more than 120km during BAT tenure, wmeven if he had 8 years to rule.

In top of that, investments don't immediately rush in, it comes little by little.

So, any big talk of this bringing in any significant investments (in near future), is just talk by politicians to sway public views and acceptance to their own side.

So, this project is more of politics of interests rather than the 'beautiful' reasons they are telling you.

QED. You have said everything that needs to be said. The road is for the Benefit of Lagos State, first and then the south west. It will never and I say never get to the Niger Deltas.

DeLaRue:
Why can’t the government simply ban cryptocurrencies in Nigeria.

How do you think a ban on Crypto can work? Is there a legal framework that can prevent ordinary Nigerians from buying/selling, trading and receiving payments in crypto?

Make it illegal and a strict liability offence for banks and other financial institutions.

You will require a law passed by the national assembly for that. Afterall, we are supposed to be in a democracy and not an autocracy. A government cannot just wake up one morning and ban this and ban that.
I wait a bill to that effect, I will be among the people that will campaign against such bill.

Any bank found hosting any customer account dealing in crypto currency is liable to prosecution leading to a big fine upon conviction. As a strict liability offence, it would be irrelevant whether or not the bank was aware an account was being used for crypto.

Once again, under what laws will such prosecutions take place, that is even if banks are aware of transactions involving cryptos? There is no way banks can separate transactions involving cryptos from any other millions of transactions that take place daily. In this digital age, transactions are digitally carried out for most things, from paying for pizza to paying fuel, how do you intend the banks isolate crypto transactions?

The crypto thing is mostly delusional hot air.

$20 Billion worth of Bitcoin are traded daily. that's just bitcoin. There are dozens of other cryptocurrencies. USDT trading volume is over $75 billion daily. These are a lot for delusional hot air.

To the poster who says he receives crypto for services he renders. Fair enough, but you are unfortunately in the minority. Most crypto activities are about trading and moving stolen public funds out of the country. These are the people being targeted by the CBN.

How do you know that, what data do you have that shows crypto ryp payments for services (and goods) are in the minority and moving stolen money out of the country are in the majority? Are you now insinuating that the hundreds of billions stolen out of Nigeria by politicians was done through cryptos?

The government has a legitimate right to protect the interest of the country whether or not some agree.

No one is arguing with that, but how has the government been protecting the interest of Nigerians?
It seems the government is only interested in protecting the interests of the rich and powerful and abandon the interest of the masses, particularly the youth. This government is anti-youth, with the way they are harassing young men and women up and down with the flimsiest excuse. In Nigeria any youthful exuberance can land you in jail or at worst get you killed, eg wearing tattoo, funky hairstyles, uncommon clothes, etc. Imagine a cross dresser was sent to 6 months imprisonment without the option of a fine for spraying naira.

MRMRMR:
And u don't think that investing in roads, airports, seaports, rails, power etc is the same as investing in production?
Or do u want the govt to share the money to the poor and fellow politicians because we are in an economic mess.

We have enough roads in Nigeria, the problem is the state of our roads. If the Ibadan - Ilorin road is fixed, Lagos to Ilorin would be about 3 hours, Lagos to Abuja would be about 9 hours. I remember in the 80s when the road was still motorable, I drove from Lagos to Ilorin in 3 hours.
Most roads in the east are not motorable, the East - West road is horrible.

Ditto for sea ports. Nigeria has enough sea ports, the problem is the same with roads, they have been left in a state of disrepair. Upgrade of all the ports will have a massive boost on the economy nationwide.

What the government needs to invest heavily on is Rails and power, and also education. Rails is what can make the transportation of goods and peoples safer, cheaper and faster. Before the US started their industrialization drive, they embarked of the Rail road project that connected the whole of the US.
Power of course is what is needed to drive development.

Then the other most critical factor to development is manpower which is education. Most countries in the top tier in the world's today have invested massively in education. They give free of very cheap quality education to their citizens, Most time up to secondary school level, sometimes even to university level. Here we are investing very little in education and mass producing illiterates that can add very little to the development of the country.

So much ignorance in on post. There are two types of Niger Delta - Geographical and political Niger delta. In elementary Geography, a delta is an area of low, flat land shaped like a triangle, where a river splits and spreads out into several branches before entering the sea. Niger Delta simply means the delta of the river Niger, just like the Nile delta is the delta that form from the river nile. The geographical Niger delta is just 3 states - some part of Delta, the whole of Bayelsa and some part of Rivers.
The political delta is a bit fluid and changes according to different administrations. It often includes oil producing states.
Why some igbos are so obsessed with the term Niger Delta is beyond me.

nairalanda1:
It's because we don't want to pay market price for electricity

Another false narrative.
It's because of lack of adequate planning and corruption.
How much is the market price of an electricity produced from gas (LPG/CNG) by a country touted with one of the largest gas reserves in the world, but choose to flare most of it?

What is the market price for electricity for a country with so many rivers including the Dongo River on the mambilla plateau that can single handedly generate 3000MW of electricity?

The Federal Government says Nigeria’s electricity generation has risen to 4,800 megawatts up from around 3500 in March.


The problem is not generation, its transmission. Afterall, they say Nigeria has an installed/generation capacity of 12,000MW. The problem is our over centralised transmission lines can never handle more than 5,000MW before you start hearing system collapse.

It's a shame that in the 21st century, a single fault on our transmission line would plunge the whole nation into total darkness for days.

So unless we decentralised our transmission lines, we would never meet our power requirements

TOPMAN4LIFE:
It's not southerners that are against the road but precisely Igbo people because the road doesn't pass through their land.
They are always against good development since it's not Obi or that labour party government of Abia State that is doing it.
They like to condemn leaders from other tribes and try to praise and promote their own.
Peter Obi that didn't even have a landmark project to show in Anambra for 8 years is the one they are making noise about

False. You are no different from IPOB - Ethnic jingoist.
I am from the Niger delta and the proposed Coastal road is to pass through my village. I and many other Niger Deltans would prefer the completion of the East West road, we have suffered untold hardship on that road for decades. This is a project thar can be completed within the lifetime of this administration.

How long do you think it would take to complete a 800km mega coastal highway that is to pass through beaches, swamps, mangroves and numerous rivers. Ordinary adding 2 lanes to the 70km lekki Epe expressway has taken close to two decades, and is still not finished. The 800km Lagos Calabar coastal road would take at least a century.

Sheuns:
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.“

People that can explain this statement better should enlighten us. I tried to google what CPC+F means and it’s engineering related.

Abeg, also add this statement for enlightenment. I honestly don't understand what he is talking about here.

“I’m very happy that the President has directed me to begin the design of one of the spurs linking to this coastal route, and that is the Sokoto-Badagry, which was conceived by the President Shagari administration.

How can the coastal road that starts from Epe be one of the spurs linking the proposed Sokoto - Badagry expressway, which is expected to start in Badagry? A road conceived in the 70s even before the thought of a coastal road.
You sure say Umehi no dey smoke loud?

lolu2019:
oga, when u have an option, travelling becomes easier.i am scared of travelling to Akwa ibom just because of kidnappings on Benin-Ore road.that Coastal road is for people like us not for u.

And you think kidnapping would not happen on the proposed Coastal road. In fact kidnapping would be easier on the Coastal road, as the there is the added option of escape by the sea.

Kidnapping is due to poor security architecture and not because design of road.

Johnthesuccess:
Oga this is a ppp model. It is to be
tolled just like it is done in many parts of the world. So the company will be in charge of it's maintenance.

Is that PPP model working on the Lagos-Epe Expressway? This was road built by Jakande and expanded by Tinubu. It took them more than 15 to complete the project (that is adding one extra lane on each side), but they started tolling after completing just about 20km.
Even though it is touted as a PPP project, government money will be heavily involved. The government will pay billions as compensation to people affected by the project, the government land the road will be built on will be given free (this is also worth billions if not trillions), then government will acquire shares (the cost of which is usually hidden) in the whole project. These so called PPP projects are never transparent.

COMPAQ:
This attempt to 'greenwash' coastal road will only work for the largely illiterate among us - of which they are unfortunately many.

A road is meant to get you from Point A to B as efficiently as possible to boost economic activity. That economic activity could be trade, productivity, tourism etc. While a road may produce scenic views and become a sort of tourist attraction, it's very unlikely that that was the aim of its construction.

One thing you'll notice about almost all the roads you provided pictures to is that the road is flanked by mountainous regions. The road hugging the coast is therefore born of NECESSITY, as the cost of attempting to construct through the mountains continuous peaks and valleys will be mind boggling.

Nigeria doesn't have that terrain challenge, so why are we spending unnecessary money building a road that requires so much sand filling, when we could push it inland a little bit?

But wait, that road already sort of exists!! It's called the EAST WEST road from Calabar, to Uyo to PH to Warri to Benin to Ore to Shagamu to Lagos.

What makes sense is to do the VI to FTZ phase, then after the FTZ take the road to join the existing East West Road after Ore. That saves us a ton of money for other roads across the country that need urgent attention.

You people comparing us with roads in US, UK, Japan, China, Sweden etc check their annual budget and ours

Nigeria $33bln
US $4Trln
Japan. $750bln
South Africa $130bln

We should spend our money more wisely.

Oga, you are attempting the impossible - use reason and logic to make sense to APC supporters. What they can understand are emotional and sentimental rants like Obi, Labour Party, PDP, Muslim/Christian, Igbo, Yoruba, and other primordial sentiments. Karl Marx should also have added politics to religion as an opium of the masses.

Why start another Coastal Highway when the East-West Road is still uncompleted after more than 20 years and billions of naira.

masseratti:
am not going to hold brief of support the government..but nothing will work unless we float the naira truly...sharara reporters bringing sensational topic is just doing business...

What has worked since the floating of the naira? How can a sane country float its currency when it is import dependent? We import everything from medicine to fuels to even food.
When the naira was truly floated, what happened? Naira almost got to N2000, before government panicked and started arresting Bureau de change operators and Binance. The CBN then started pumping dollars into the market. What will happens when CBN stops pumping dollars into the market?

Comparing apples to oranges. Most of the coastal roads you showed in your pictures have natural barriers protecting the roads from the ocean, some of the so called coastal roads are bridges across rivers or lagoons. I did not see any road exposed directly to the ocean. Nigerian coasts are directly facing the ocean with sand as the only separating barrier. Most times the coast is only a few inches above sea level.

Barteze:
The funny thing is that Dave Umahi himself requested that the mic be handed to the white woman (if you watched the program live) only for this mild drama to happen. In truth I think her question wasn't necessary at that particular time

Her question is very necessary and appropriate. Where is environmental impact assessment of such a huge project that will have significant impact on the coastline?

The road will affect animals that needs beaches and coastlines for their survival like mating, laying of eggs or shelter.

The whole of the Nigerian coastlines are suffering erosion from the ocean because of rising sea levels and extreme weather. Large sections of the beach would be taken over by the ocean within 50 - 100 years. I lived on Victoria Island for 20 years. I the 70s you would walk up to a kilometer before you see the ocean. By the year 2000, the ocean had eaten up a whole section of the road. The Atlantic city project was to protect the V/I shoreline.

Trump is threatening violence again if he looses the November 2024 elections. When he was asked whether he expects political violence after the elections, he responded that it depends on the fairness of the elections. Now, who determines the fairness of an election?

I think the American political and justice system has bent over too much to accommodate the excesses of Trump. He is too embolden that he feels he is untouchable. The whole of the US political and justice system seems afraid of him, that he can practically get away with murder.

The US will have to confront the Trump menace headlong once and for all, and damn the threats and intimidation of his MAGA cult movement.

Coastal road in this climate change/global warming age when sea levels are expected to rise? How will the government prevent erosion that is eating the Atlantic coast from dragging the road into the ocean? Are they going to extend Atlantic City all the way from lagos to calabar?

Nightwolf1:
Highly misplaced priority... The only question I have for Thièfnubu and his brain dead zombies is;

They should show me where this road project will pass through in Rivers State and name the location..

Lagos shoreline is totally different from what is obtainable in Bayelsa, Delta and Rivers State. Travel and see things yourself.

Are they going to build the coastal highway on swampy mangrove forest or in the creeks?

.

My broda, me I know understand the environmental, economic and logical sense of building a mega highway all along the Nigerian coast in these global warming or is it climate change era. It just does not make an iota of sense to me.
Roads that will be washed into the ocean within 50 years, might even be sooner. You think the people that built the Lagos-Ibadan expressway were stupid to build the expressway far inland.

bemeruca:
Hunter wants to sue fox news for reporting what other DNC media will not report.

Other DNC media will not report stories they cannot verify.

So tell us what is he suing them for?

Hannity show on foxnews aired over 80 segments in 2023 alone alleging that Mykola zlochevsky, the Ukrainian oligarch who controlled Burisma paid a $5 million bribe to joe Biden through Hunter Biden.

Maria Batiromo pushed these same allegations against Hunter Biden more than 200 times in 2023

Now Foxnews will be given opportunity under oath to prove these allegations.

Don't be a yes man for a useless child at 50. He can sue for defamation, but that does not mean he was defamed.

Why get do personal with Hunter Biden? He is not running for any office. whether he is convicted of a crime or not should have bearing whatsoever on your life.

Yes he can sue for defamation, only a competent court of law can determine if he was defamed or not.

Things are about to rev up for MAGA cult and it's megaphone - Foxnews, Hunter Biden is preparing to sue Foxnews for defamation. MAGA is about to go into overdrive with their propaganda and conspiracy theories, and not forgetting fake outrage. They will now be given opportunity to present all their evidence in court or pay another set of millions in damages.

kingolu1:
That's a good one, you will never see USA citizen criticizing their Government over this,but somewhere you will see their citizen in a large debate try to make excuse for the victim, there's nothing legit about Binance or any crypto.

You will also not see US government kidnapping a suspect and lock them up indefinitely while investigating the crime.

Binance is not the only crypto exchange on the internet. There are at least 5 other major ones and uncountable minor ones. Kucoin, OKX, Bybit, MERC, etc are operating without any problem. The even still have NGN on their platforms.

DeepSight:
Wirinet..... Here again....
You know I told you how hesitant I am about anything crypto.

Crypto is not the problem. Crypto like any other tool can be employed for both positive and negative use. It's just a system of decentralized exchange.
The problem governments around the world is having with Crypto is how to regulate and monitor it, and collect taxes on transactions made through it.

Trading crypto is like trading other instruments like commodities, forex, stocks, futures, options, etc., the difference is that cryptos are more volatile and unpredictable, and is more prone to manipulation. If you can master it, you can indeed make a lot of money in a short period of time. you can also loose a lot in very short period of time.

UjuJoan2:
Nobody is the HEAD. Husband and wife are co-captains, and each have their own roles to fulfill, both equally important.

False. In any social structure or organisation, there must be a leader. This applies to all animals, except solitary animals. Marriage is the most basic human social structure, and for it to be successful, there must be a defined leader/head. Now, that leader does not mean dictatorship, and it might even not necessarily be the man. In some cases the woman takes on the responsibility of leading the family.

Societies without a leader are often don't achieve any form of greatness and are often subservient to those with strong and defined leaders.

Sapasenator:
It is unique to Nigerians. I have travelled all over the world and live with the whites for decades. I actually go out of my way to avoid fellow Nigerians for this attitude.

Where have you travelled that you find no discrimination? Have you travelled to the US? You lived with the whites in the US and you see no discrimination? You have travelled to the UK and you see no discrimination? In fact UK has very strong anti-discrimination laws. A cousin sued her employer for discrimination in the UK and was awarded a heft sum as damages, as she was able to prove it in court. Have you been to the middle East and find no discrimination. Israel nko? The black Jews in Israel are always crying of discrimination.

Sapasenator:
I am honestly ashamed of you guys who discriminate against your fellow countrymen because of tribes. Shame on you.

If you have travelled abroad, you will know that discrimination is not unique to Nigeria. There is serious discrimination in the US, UK and even China. The Tibetians, the Uyghurs and the Zhuang people are always crying of marginalisation and discrimination by the majority Han tribe.

Lifestone:
Your hatred for Nigeria is palpable. You forgot history too soon. When Yoruba has opportunities to confiscate Igbos Properties after the Civil war, they didn't. Commercial disputes are completely different from discrimination moreso from a foreigners in your country

It's amazing that this generation of igbos are so hateful. Their fathers were more reasonable. The hatred exhibited by todays igbo youth had never been witnessed in Nigeria, even during and immediately after the civil war. My father inlaw actually fought in the civil war and was very close to ojukwu. You will never find him spewing so much hatred for Nigeria or Yorubas or even hausa-fulanis.

Sapasenator:
God bless you for that. They are bunches hypocrites. Bigoted tribalist complaining about racism.

I am honestly ashamed of you guys. So because there is tribalism in Nigeria now justifies Chinese coming into our country and insult us? There is no country in the world that does not suffer some degree of racism/tribalism. In England there are serious tribalism between the English, the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish. Same in China, there are serious tribal tension among the various ethnicities. But when it come to confronting outsiders they forger their differences and unite to face a common enemy/threat or humiliation. Here you guys rejoice and give support to our enemies and wish all us dead.
Pathetic.

abdsamad:
I still don't know why this is a big deal.
Owner of private (not government) property said someone should not enter, you said they're not good.
Chinese or no, they bought the land. If you didn't want them to do whatever you wanted with it you should not have sold it to them.

People behaving as if the owner borrowed it or is a mere caretaker for the land

Please stop behaving like an ingrate that uses left hand to point to his father's compound. The Chinese don't own any land in Nigeria, all land belongs to the government, they can only lease it.
Even if they bought and own the land, they cannot commit a crime on the land.
They should go to South Africa and discriminate against the locals claiming they own the land, and see if they would live to tell the story.

hslbroker2:
Even the hate for ourselves is more than what the chinese are doing to us.

Forget hate among ourselves, that's a family problem. It's unacceptable that outsiders would come into our house and start insulting us.

Antoeni:
Those Nigerians Are Mad, Person Say I No Want You For my Store or Shop, Is it By Force? THen go Else Where

Please cure your ignorance by reading chapter 4 section 42 of the Nigerian constitution.

DeadCountry:
Stop barking like a rabid dog you nitwit hypocrite. Is what the Chinese did more bad than Igbo lives, properties and businesses that you omoniles and your illegal terrorist government are destroying at Lagos? The Chinese owns their supermarket and they reserves the right to chose who buys from them.

It seems lots of misguided igbo youths are very bitter and angry at Nigeria and fellow Nigerians, probably due to heavy dose of iPOB propaganda. So they don't mind humiliation and even self destruction, as long as Nigeria is destroyed along with them.
How can citizens support foreign nationals discriminating against locals in their fatherland and operating an apartheid system, and someone is happy. Try this shit in any Country outside black Africa, and the place would be burnt down and the Chinese deported back to their country.
In they tried this shit in the UK, a country that has strict anti-discrimination laws, the restaurant owners would need to sell the store to pay damages.

longetivity:
And concrete roads can last up to 30 years, I stand to be corrected tho

If concrete roads can only last 30 years, how come roman roads and bridges have lasted over 2000 years? What did they use in building their roads?