Obasanjo calls Lagos-Calabar coastal project ‘wasteful’ and ‘corrupt’

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has called the N15.6 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway project wasteful and corrupt.

He also criticized President Bola Tinubu’s administration for spending N21 billion on a new official residence for Vice President Kashim Shettima, saying it shows misplaced priorities and is a way to steal public funds.

Obasanjo shared these views in his new book “Nigeria: Past and Future,” which was released during his 88th birthday celebration last week.

The Works Minister, David Umahi, previously stated that the 700km highway will cost N4.93 billion per kilometre. The government has already released N1.06 trillion for the first phase, which represents 6% of the project.

Many important Nigerians, including 2023 presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar, have questioned why the government gave the contract to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech Construction Company without letting other companies compete for it. Chagoury is reportedly a longtime business partner and friend of President Tinubu.

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In his assessment of Tinubu’s two years in office, Obasanjo suggested that the practice of taking advantage of Nigerians will continue because “Everything is said to be transactional and the slogan is ‘It is my turn to chop.'”

Obasanjo believes that most people who have held leadership positions in Nigeria are poorly prepared, selfish, and focused on enriching themselves while the country remains poor and underdeveloped.

He claims that many people seeking political office are willing to take out huge loans, confident they can repay them using public funds after getting elected.

Obasanjo stated, “How do you explain the situation of a chief executive, a governor, whose business was owing the banks billions of naira and millions of dollars before becoming a governor and within two years of becoming governor, without his company doing any business, he paid all that his businesses owed the banks.

“You are left to guess where the money came from. Having got away with that in the first term, he consigned to himself almost half of the state resources in the second term. He was a typical example of the goings-on at that level almost universally in the country with only a few exceptions.

“State resources are captured and appropriated to themselves with a pittance to staff and associates to close the mouths of those that could blow the whistle or raise alarm against them while in office and when they are out of office.”

He added, “The ones that are criminally ridiculous are the chief executives that deceive, lie and try to cover up on the realities and truth of action and inaction on contract awards, agreements, treaties, borrowings and forward sales of national assets. Such chief executives are unfit for the job they find themselves in.

“Typical examples of waste, corruption and misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-President’s official residence built at a cost of N21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the office of the Vice-President. What small minds!”