By Bayo Wahab

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has branded the N15.6tn Lagos-Calabar Coastal highway project as wasteful and corrupt.

Obasanjo also criticised the administration of President Bola Tinubu for spending N21 billion on a new official residence for Vice President Kashim Shettima.

The ex-president described the new vice president’s residence as a misplaced priority, adding that it was a ploy to embezzle public funds.

Obasanjo said this in his new book, Nigeria: Past and Future, which was launched last week to mark his 88th birthday.

The Lagos-Calabar highway is a 700km project, and according to the Minister of Works, David Umahi, it will cost N4.93bn per kilometre.

Umahi disclosed that the contract was awarded on a counterpart-funding basis, not a Public-Private Partnership.

However, in his book, Obasanjo said the road project typifies waste and corruption. 

He said, “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!” 

The ex-president also slammed political office holders and political office seekers in the country, saying the majority of those in power are satanic and self-centred.

Obasanjo said, “Majority of those who have been opportune to hold leadership positions in the country as governors, presidents, ministers, commissioners even as local government chairmen are ill-prepared, satanic, self-centred.

The ex-president alleged that many of them are out to corruptly enrich themselves while the nation continues to wallow in abject poverty and condemnable underdevelopment.

Proffering solutions, Obasanjo urged Africans to adopt Afrodemocracy, a governance system that “seeks democracy within African history, culture, attributes and characteristics.”

Vanguard News