Minister of Works Engineer David Umahi has expressed strong displeasure over statements made by journalist Rufai Oseni regarding the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project, describing the information as damaging and disrespectful to his professional expertise.
Speaking in an interview with Arise TV , Minister Umahi responded to comments made during a program featuring PDP chieftain Otunba Segun Showunmi. “I listened to the PDP chieftain, Otunba Segun Showunmi, that came on this program yesterday about this time. And I was very displeased with a number of damaging information that Rufai dished out to the public, and I feel that it’s very important that I clear such damaging information,” he stated.
The Works Minister specifically addressed claims that he struggled to provide cost figures for the coastal highway project. “Rufai was very wrong when he said that I was struggling to give figures on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway cost. That is very disrespectful, because this is my profession, and I was in your studio a few months ago and I ran the figures from the basis with the take-off sheets—and arrived at the cost,” Umahi said.
He explained why providing uniform per-kilometer costs for the entire project would be technically misleading. “Now, what Rufai is asking me to do is to give him cost per kilometer from section one at Victoria Island in Lagos down to Cross River, Calabar, and that is very unfortunate because he wants to learn engineering from the back door. There are no two sections, or even within a road project, even where there are no challenges, where you can get the cost of one kilometer the same as the cost of the other kilometer,” the minister explained.
Umahi defended his previous explanations of the project costs while criticizing what he characterized as the journalist’s inflammatory approach. “And I thought that I had sufficiently explained the cost of the coastal highway, and I thought that each time there was an award of any kind on infrastructure and other awards in Federal Executive Council, we would always come out and then give out the analysis to the public. And so what Rufai was saying was very inciting, and I think he’s very good at doing this, and he should desist from that because it’s actionable,” he argued.
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