Alake: Lagos-Calabar coastal highway will boost tourism

Dele Alake, minister of solid minerals development, says the completion of Lagos-Calabar coastal highway will improve tourism in the axis.

The 700-kilometre Lagos-Calabar coastal highway is expected to run through nine states and would have a railroad running through the middle.

In a statement on April 18 by Segun Tomori, media aide to the minister, Alake highlighted the administration’s efforts towards infrastructural revitalisation, citing the coastal road. 

The minister spoke while hosting a delegation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Professionals Forum led by Isa Yuguda, former Bauchi state governor. 

He said on completion, it will shorten travel time to Cross River state capital to two and half hours. 

“On completion of that coastal road, the amount of tourism that will be generated along that axis is unimaginable,” Alake said.

“It will be one of the longest tourism coast town drive in Africa, not to talk of the ease of movement of goods and services; the economic impact of ports along the route, and it will finally link up to Sokoto – a project which has been in the pipeline for more than 30 years.”

Speaking further, he said the reforms implemented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration have started manifesting in the resurgence of the nation’s economy. 

Alake said Tinubu’s bold leadership and courage in taking difficult decisions is turning the tide, establishing a solid foundation for the economy.

“The President has chosen to leave a legacy of taking difficult decisions that will herald enduring structures that will not only outlast the administration, but also make it impossible for successive administrations to deviate from,” he said.

“The society would have become used to a certain standard of service delivery at the end of the Tinubu administration that Nigerians will no more settle for anything less.”

According to the minister, the recovery of the naira and the developing stability in the foreign exchange market is evidence that the temporary pains of reforms are beginning to fade.

He charged the forum to contribute their quota in ensuring the success of the administration. 

Alake said the APC-led federal government is receptive to innovative ideas in its quest to deliver dividends of democracy to Nigerians through the renewed hope agenda.