The Minister of Works, David Umahi, has said that motorists would pay N3,000 at toll gates to be mounted on the Lagos-Calabar coastal road when completed.
He, however, promised to save the Landmark Beach Resort property, and it would not be demolished in the cause of constructing the 700-kilometre coastal road project intended to connect Lagos State with Calabar in Cross River State.
Umahi spoke about Landmark in an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday.
Speaking in a separate interview on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief, the Umahi said users of the road would pay tolls.
“Let me leave out the infrastructure along the corridor. Let me just concentrate on the tolls and I put 50,000 vehicles as an average passage on these toll points per day,” Umahi said on the breakfast show. “I put N3,000 as an average cost. N3,000 because the cars could be like N1,500, and the big trucks could be like N5,000. So we put an average”.
“In 15 years, you make back the money,” he said, dismissing calls that the cost budgeted for the road was high.
According to him, there will be security at the toll gates and also some facilities like filling stations.
“At every point of tolling, we also have toll station where we have a kind of relief activities: the restaurants, filling stations, parking lots, and so on and so forth,” Umahi said.
“So, people will now have confidence. In these sections, we intend to put CCTV all through.”
At Arise TV, he said, “I was at Landmark yesterday to see what was going on. Despite claims that 12,000 jobs will be lost, I told Landmark that no jobs will be lost by what we’re doing.
“What could be lost is the shoreline and the people that go to play at the shoreline. His facilities will be intact because we reduced the corridor by 50 metres.
“I saw that there’s no permanent structure other than a few shanties along the shoreline that are affected. I told him that no job would be lost, and he agreed with me,” he said.
The Minister further stated, “Who owns the land is not supposed to be my problem, but the Federal Government (FG), by the Waterways Act and the recent Supreme Court judgement, gave the right of ownership of the shoreline to FG. 250 metres from the point of the shoreline, which means it belongs to FG.
“However, we’re interested here because it’s an investment, and we’re happy with it. We are taking 50 metres of that shoreline, and it’s irrevocable. I also told him if he’s interested in the waterways, he should create one on top.”
Recall that the Lagos State Government had issued a notice of demolition of the $200 Landmark Beach Resort, saying the property obstructs the planned route of the 700-kilometer coastal road project.
The proprietor of Landmark Beach Resort, Paul Onwuanibe, in an interview with CNN, said he was given a notice to vacate his multimillion-dollar beach resort within seven days for its impending demolition.
According to him, the Landmark property accommodates more than 80 businesses and sustains over 4,000 jobs directly.
He added that the company claims it contributes more than N2 billion in taxes each year.
Onwuanibe explained he purchased the land in 2007, well before the coastal highway plans were formulated, and was left with mixed feelings after the demolition notice arrived, also prompting him to claim compensation.
Recall that in March, the Federal Government started constructing the 700-kilometer Lagos – Calabar Coastal Highway, designed to extend through 9 states with two spurs leading to the Northern States.
