Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State has slammed the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, asking him to stop dancing around the the cost of the controversial Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project approved by President Bola Tinubu
Makinde, who made this statement on Friday, was reacting to a heated exchange that unfolded live on television between Umahi and Arise TV presenter Rufai Oseni on Tuesday.
Recall that the Arise TV presenter had requested the minister to analyse the cost of the project, kilometre by kilometre.
The request didn’t sit well with Umahi, who declared himself “professor” of practice in engineering while elaborating that the costs of the road in kilometres are not the same and would be too complicated for the journalist to understand.
“These are elementary questions. And it makes no sense (sic). A process is ongoing, payment has been made, and you are saying, ‘how has this money been utilised?. The money is meant for the project, and it will be paid according to the work done.
“When a certificate is generated, and it is approved through a process in the Ministry of Works, it will then be given to the funders, who will, in turn, check if the works were done. How can you ask for the cost of a kilometre? The prices are different. The next kilometre is different from the next kilometre.
“Keep quiet and stop saying what you don’t know. I’m a professor in this field. You don’t understand anything. I understand engineering very well. You have no knowledge of what you ask. You have no knowledge of what you’re asking,” Umahi had said.
While justifying the journalist’s question to the minister, Governor Makinde said, “They asked a minister how much the coastal road is, and then you (Umahi) are dancing around and going to say that no, the next kilometre is different from the next kilometres. Then what is the average cost?
“When we did the Oyo to Iseyin road then, it was about N9.99 billion, almost N10 billion. About 34 or 35 kilometres, average cost is about N238 million per kilometre.
“But when we did Iseyin to Ogbomoso, that was 76 kilometres, it was about N43 billion, average cost is about N500 million per kilometre. And we had two bridges, one over the Ogun river and then one at Ogbomoso end.”p
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