As Donald Duke Doubts, Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway Pushes Across State Borders

Donald Duke knows Cross River State the way few Nigerians do. He governed it for eight years, built the Tinapa Resort Complex, and transformed Calabar into one of the country’s most cited examples of state-level urban ambition. When he speaks about infrastructure in that part of Nigeria, people listen.

So when Duke appeared on Arise News on August 5 as the freshly announced 2027 presidential candidate of the Peoples Redemption Party and called the N15 trillion Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway a misplaced priority, it landed with some force.

His argument was specific. Nigeria, he said, cannot afford the project. An existing road to Calabar already works and simply needs repairs. The terrain through Bayelsa’s swamps would demand hundreds of bridges. The billions being committed to the coastal route would do more good redirected into electricity and healthcare. And the road, he claimed, would not go beyond Epe.

The Presidency responded through media aide Temitope Ajayi, who described Duke’s comments as politically motivated and pointed to construction activity already past Epe and into Ogun State, with work ongoing on the Ondo and Akwa Ibom sections.

That detail is the most inconvenient part of Duke’s position. The geographic claims he made, specifically that the highway cannot realistically cross into the swamp-heavy south, are legitimate engineering questions worth debating. The funding concerns are also worth examining in a country managing serious fiscal pressure. These are real issues.

But the assertion that the road would not leave Lagos has already been overtaken by construction equipment operating in at least two other states. Criticism grounded in verifiable facts carries weight. Criticism that physical progress has already contradicted carries less.

Duke is building a presidential campaign on a platform of economic urgency and leadership accountability, themes with genuine resonance. The Lagos-Calabar highway is a reasonable target for scrutiny. The stronger version of that scrutiny, though, will need to track what is actually happening on the ground.