I don’t think Lagos Calabar highway is wasteful, taking cognisance that such amount of money for the project can be stolen by one man, as it happened in the CBN in the past
Shehu Sani, a former legislator who represented Kaduna Central in the National Assembly, has mentioned that the Lagos-Calabar highway project, which is estimated to cost N15.6 trillion, is not a project that is a waste of money.
IREPORT247NEW reports that the N15.6 trillion Lagos-Calabar Highway project has been criticized by the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo.
Obasanjo also criticized the administration of President Bola Tinubu for spending N21 billion on a new official mansion for Vice President Kashim Shettima.
He referred to this expenditure as a misplaced priority and a conduit designed to pilfer public fund. In the sixth chapter of his new book, titled “Nigeria: Past and Future,” Obasanjo revealed this information.
“Obasanjo stated, “How do you explain the situation of a chief executive, a governor, whose business was owing the banks billions of naira and millions of dollars before becoming a governor and within two years of becoming governor, without his company doing any business, he paid all that his businesses owed the banks.
“You are left to guess where the money came from. Having got away with that in the first term, he consigned to himself almost half of the state resources in the second term. He was a typical example of the goings-on at that level almost universally in the country with only a few exceptions.
“State resources are captured and appropriated to themselves with a pittance to staff and associates to close the mouths of those that could blow the whistle or raise alarm against them while in office and when they are out of office.
“The ones that are criminally ridiculous are the chief executives that deceive, lie and try to cover up on the realities and truth of action and inaction on contract awards, agreements, treaties, borrowings and forward sales of national assets. Such chief executives are unfit for the job they find themselves in.
“Typical examples of waste, corruption and misplaced priority are the murky Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road on which the President had turned deaf ears to protests and the new Vice-President’s official residence built at a cost of N21bn in the time of economic hardship to showcase the administration hitting the ground running and to show the importance of the office of the Vice-President. What small minds!
“If the West, from where the liberal democracy started should complain about it not working well for them, we should be wise enough at this stage to interrogate, carry out introspection, internal analysis and realise that Western liberal democracy is not working for us and is not delivering apart from the shortcomings of the operators.”
In response to the highway project, Sani stated in a post that was published on Thursday on his official X handle that the project is not wasteful. He also mentioned that the cash that was allocated for the project could have been stolen.
Sani wrote, “I don’t think Lagos Calabar highway is wasteful, taking cognisance that such amount of money for the project can be stolen by one man, as it happened in the CBN in the past.”