The Minister of Works Dave Umahi says the Lagos-Calabar coastal road construction will take eight years and cost N4bn per kilometre.

Umahi spoke on Thursday while fielding questions about the project on Channels Television’s The Morning Brief.

“We are looking at eight years in the life tenure of Mr President [Bola Tinubu],” he said.

The minister said each kilometre of the coastal road would cost N4b but said the government’s prudence made that possible.

“You know, there are other projects not awarded by me that are also going for about N4 billion per kilometre,” the former lawmaker explained.

“So, I will pride myself, to the glory of God, that this project is the most prudent project that I’m starting. Other projects I made, we are reviewing, we are fighting, and we’re trying to review, the cost,” he said.

Umahi, however, said the cost is a tentative one.

“Well, I cannot sign my signature on that because it can come down, it can go up,” the minister said.

But there are plans to recoup the money via tolling, according to the minister.

“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,” he said. “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.

He said 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.”