Warri Reclamation Thrust and the Itsekiri National Youths Council, INYC, have faulted the decision to divert the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road project away from the coastline after Lagos and Ogun states.

Convener of Warri Reclamation Thrust and former National Executive of INYC, Tsaye Mene, said the decision was an insult to the Itsekiri, Ilaje and Ijaw people, whose oil-rich coastal communities in Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa provide most of the resources used to fund the project.

Mene said: “It is shocking and insulting that the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, which was originally designed to follow the coastline through Ondo, Delta and Bayelsa’s oil-rich coastal communities, will now detour inland through Edo State to connect to the East-West Road.

“This decision has largely destroyed the major purpose of the Coastal Road, which is to open up the coastal, oil-producing and most marginalised communities in Nigeria and bring development, industry and hope to people who have suffered decades of neglect despite producing the wealth of the nation.

“The Itsekiri, Ilaje and Ijaw coastal communities are the backbone of this nation’s economy. To use our resources to build a road and then deliberately bypass our communities is the highest form of injustice. It is unacceptable.

“Umahi may describe it as a wonderful engineering decision by Mr President, but for us on the coast, it is a terrible social and economic decision that will deepen poverty, insecurity and the feeling of exclusion.

“We are appealing to President Bola Tinubu to do the needful and keep his promise to the people. A Coastal Road must follow the coast. It must not become another East-West Road rehabilitation project rebranded as Coastal Road.

“We stand with our brothers and sisters of Ilaje in Ondo State and demand a return to the original coastal alignment from Araromi, Ugbonla, through Awoye, Ilepete, Ikorigho, Obe-Rewoye and Odonla to Ogheye, Orere, Escravos (Ugborodo) and the Escravos terminal, then to Forcados in Warri and Burutu in Delta State. It moves from Burutu to the Bayelsa border, down to the Nembe area. That is the true Coastal Road.

“Mr President, if this new agenda is allowed, it abandons the very communities that suffer from sea incursion, lack roads but produce the oil that funds this all-important project, which promises to be a road that opens up the coast for coastal people, not a rehabilitation of the East-West Road.” (Sunday Vanguard)