... Says Tinubu’s vision must not be compromised by technicalities

… Insists Ondo’s 100 km coastline must be integrated into project

The  pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation Afenifere stressed on Sunday that the oil-rich coastal communities of Ondo State will not accept any deviation from the original design of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, insisting that the project must fully integrate the state’s 100-kilometre Atlantic shoreline.

 

While stressing the recent visit by the minister of works, David Umahi, to the Ilaje area of the state, the apex Yoruba group described the unscheduled visit as a commendable act of democratic responsiveness.

 

During an interview with newsmen in Akure, the state capital, the secretary general of the organisation, Sola Ebiseni, stated that the federal government’s explanation for bypassing Ondo’s coastline based on soil challenges remains unacceptable to the Yoruba people of the Niger Delta.

 

According to Ebiseni, who frowned at what he described as a fundamental inequity in the project’s current alignment, the 700-kilometre highway, conceived as a coastal corridor linking Lagos to Cross River, threatens to exclude communities that have for generations depended on the Atlantic for their livelihood and cultural identity.

 

The Afenifere scribe rejected the minister’s explanation that engineering challenges necessitated bypassing the state’s coastline, insisting that the terrain is not insurmountable.

 

He said, ‘The unscheduled visit of the Honourable Minister to Igbokoda within a week of our engagement with the President in an open letter is most commendable and a hallmark of democracy.’

 

“The minister has now told us that the coastal alignment was altered at the Ondo State sector due to soil challenges which he said were peculiar to our environment. He did not give us any hope but expected that we accept it as a fait accompli.”

 

He clarified that contrary to the minister’s suggestion that some groups opposed the project, the Yoruba coastal communities had long anticipated the highway with “agitated enthusiasm” and believed in its feasibility from the beginning.

 

“As a coastal Yoruba tribe we know our terrain and believe in the concept and feasibility of the road from day one and have looked forward to it with agitated enthusiasm.

 

“The road is beyond conjecture, as we confirmed in our letter that works on the Ilaje sector are progressing and would reduce travelling hours from Lagos to Ondo State to about 30 minutes.

 

“Our petition to the President is that the entire coastline of Ondo State, which is about 100 kilometres linking to the Itsekiri of Delta State, has been bypassed contrary to the original intention and declaration of the coastal highway.”

 

“Of course, we are educated here and most conversant with our environment and its challenges which are neither peculiar nor insurmountable.

 

“As far back as the early 1970s some of our coastal communities, like Aiyetoro, have given scholarships for our youths to study similar terrains in other countries abroad.

Unfortunately, such knowledge could not be put into effect for lack of support from the government.

 

“In our open letter, we wrote about the route having been traversed by telegraph poles and cables in the early 1900s, the creation of Victoria Island by the colonial government and, before our very eyes, the feat of Mr Governor in taming the sea for Atlantic City even as governor of Lagos.

 

“We also know that facilities of international oil companies are sitting on a similar terrain in different parts of the Niger Delta, with sands sourced even from the sea off Ondo State. We say without equivocation that no other project has boldly tackled the infrastructural development of the Niger Delta in this gigantic dimension.

 

“We are the Yoruba tribe of the Niger Delta. This project is one in a generation. We will not be assuaged by any lecture in civil engineering in the 21st century that our environment cannot be developed.

 

“This president has come to our environment working and giving us hope, and we stand by him in the execution of the project and in all his endeavours.”