Felix Omoh-Asun in Benin City
Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF) National Youth Wing has demanded the immediate cancellation of the reported reroute of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway and reverse to its original alignment.
The National Youth Wing made the demand in Benin City, Edo State on Tuesday, while strongly condemning the reroute.
The National Youth Leader, PANDEF National Youth Wing, DonBen Donyegha, in a press conference, described the Federal Government’s decision, as announced by the Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, to redesign and divert the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway away from its original coastal alignment and link it instead to the existing East-West Highway via Ondo into Edo State, as a betrayal and provocative.
“This is not an engineering tweak. It is a fundamental betrayal of the project’s purpose and of the littoral oil-bearing communities whose lands generate the overwhelming bulk of Nigeria’s wealth,” he said.
Umahi had further justified the change by citing difficult terrain, deep pits, and cost in sections covering parts of Ogun and Ondo States.
Umahi later clarified that the 750km project is “not abandoned” and that surveys continue elsewhere do not erase the clear directive or the practical effect: large stretches of the original coastal corridor and the communities that sit on it are being cut off.
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway was conceived and sold as a transformative coastal artery linking Lagos through the littoral states and communities of the Niger Delta to Calabar.
PANDEF said the communities, which are denied the highway, are the ones hosting oil production for decades, endured pollution, gas flaring, and underdevelopment, and continue to supply the resources that keep the Nigerian economy afloat.
“Rerouting the project inland via the chronically failed East-West Road to avoid the coast is the opposite of what was promised and what justice requires,” the group said.
According to PANDEF, “Engineering challenges and costs are real in the Niger Delta; they have always been. That should NEVER be an excuse to abandon the coastal communities that bear the heaviest burden of oil extraction and environmental pollution. Previous administrations neglected the region’s connectivity. So this administration’s decision to proceed with a coastal highway was widely welcomed in the Niger Delta precisely because it was expected to finally serve the littoral states and communities. Diverting it now re-opens the old wound of exclusion.
“This pattern of making the region that the golden eggs its own is all too familiar. Recall how President Tinubu delayed assent to the South-South Development Commission (SSDC) Bill long after the National Assembly passed it and after he had promptly signed similar bills establishing development commissions for other geopolitical zones. The unspoken suggestion was that the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) could simply absorb that role.
“The delay triggered sustained, massive pressure and protests from across the South-south until the SSDC was finally created and assented in March 2025. PANDEF and other regional voices were forced to remind the Presidency that withholding a dedicated commission for the zone that produces the bulk of the nation’s oil wealth risked feelings of exclusion and threatened the peace the country relies on for its revenue.
“The region should not have to mount repeated agitations simply to receive institutions and infrastructure that other zones are granted as a matter of course. Mr President is advised not to fall prey to latent forces in his administration seeking to use this laudable project to settle a long held desire to oppress the littoral states. We shall resist it.”
PANDEF therefore presented some demands to the President Tinubu government to avoid crises in the Niger Delta region.
The group is demanding the immediate cancellation of the directive to divert the highway onto the East-West Road via Ondo State and full reversion to the original coastal alignment across all affected sections; transparent, documented engagement with host communities, state governments, and regional stakeholders before any further major realignment decisions; and public confirmation that every littoral oil-bearing community originally intended to be served by the highway will still be served by a proper coastal route, not left to an upgraded inland road that has failed them for years.
“The East-West Road has been a symbol of neglect and broken promises for decades. Upgrading portions of it is welcome as a separate, complementary project. It cannot be used as a substitute that effectively bypasses the coastal communities this signature project was meant to open up.
“Failure to reverse this course risks avoidable youth and community reactions across the Niger Delta. Such reactions would undermine the hard-won peace and security in the region and would have clear political consequences for the administration’s clectoral prospects in the 2027 elections. The oil-bearing communities of the Niger Delta are watching. They will not accept being written out of a project built on the wealth extracted from their land, nor will they continue to beg cap in hand for their rightful share.
“The National Youth wing of PANDEF calls on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to intervene personally, reverse the diversion, and restore the original coastal vision of the Lagos-Calabar Highway. We stand ready for constructive dialogue, but we will not be silent while our communities are once again sidelined,” the group added