The Bayelsa State chapter of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC) has rejected any change to the route of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, accusing the Federal Government of shortchanging the oil-producing state. The party’s State Publicity Secretary, Prince Mac-Eke, said at a media briefing in Yenagoa on Monday that the road must keep to its original coastal alignment. He also faulted Governor Douye Diri for what he described as silence over a decision he said threatens Bayelsa’s development.
Mac-Eke argued that the coastal highway and the East-West Road are separate projects and should not be merged to save money. He said the government should have settled its feasibility studies and costing before the road reached the Niger Delta. “As Ijaw people first, we are not going to fall for that trap and we reject it in totality,” he said. “The road must follow its original plan.”
He framed the dispute as a question of fairness to a state that has long fed the national treasury. “Bayelsa oil money is good to fund Nigeria but Nigeria is not good to fund Bayelsa State,” Mac-Eke said. He also cited what he called Bayelsa’s exclusion from federal seaport plans and from President Bola Tinubu’s campaign itinerary as further signs of marginalisation.
The row began on October 12, when the Minister of Works, David Umahi, briefed journalists at the State House in Abuja. Umahi said the President had directed that the highway follow the existing East-West Road from Ondo State into Edo, rather than cut a fresh path through the creeks and swamps of the Ondo coast. He quoted Tinubu as saying: “Divert, do not do any new alignments. Pass the coastal highway through the existing East-West road.”
Umahi tied the decision to difficult terrain, construction costs and flooding on the East-West Road, particularly around Ughelli in Delta State. He said the older road had been built before the effects of climate change were properly anticipated. Parts of it, he added, now lie below flood level.
Facing a backlash, the minister moved quickly to clarify his position. Umahi said Tinubu never instructed that the 750-kilometre highway be discontinued at Edo, describing the 400-kilometre stretch of the East-West Road from Edo to Cross River as an additional project. “So nobody has abandoned the 750-kilometre Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway,” he said, adding that surveys were ongoing in Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers to link up with the section in Akwa Ibom.
That assurance has not settled the matter in Bayelsa. The Ijaw Youth Council Worldwide rejected any diversion from the coastal route at a press conference in Yenagoa on October 15, warning that it could deny several Niger Delta states the project’s economic benefits. The NDC’s position is that the Bayelsa section should be built on the coast as first proposed, not substituted with repairs to an inland road.
The figures show how much of the corridor is still on the drawing board. When work began in March 2024, the government described the project as a 700-kilometre road; officials now put it at 750 kilometres. Section One, a 47.47-kilometre stretch from Victoria Island, was awarded at about ₦1.068 trillion, and Umahi said this month that it is complete and ready for commissioning.
Section Two, covering 55 kilometres to the Lagos-Ogun boundary, was awarded at about ₦1.6 trillion, while Sections 3A and 3B at the Calabar end, covering 65 kilometres, were procured jointly at about ₦1.33 trillion. Umahi put progress on the Calabar sections at more than 30 per cent. Taken together, roughly 167 kilometres, about 22 per cent of the planned length, has been procured at close to ₦4 trillion, while the Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and Rivers stretches remain at survey and design stage.
No revised cost has been published for the expanded East-West Road works. Umahi said procurement for the remaining coastal sections would begin once surveys and designs are completed, starting from the end of the Ondo axis. No date has been announced for the Bayelsa section.
The political backdrop sharpens the dispute. Diri resigned from the Peoples Democratic Party on October 15, 2025, and was formally received into the All Progressives Congress on November 3, 2025. At the time, he said Bayelsa needed to align with a national platform that would give it greater political space and relevance.
Mac-Eke questioned whether that move has delivered the federal projects the governor promised. The NDC, whose national leader is former Bayelsa Governor Seriake Dickson and whose presidential candidate is Peter Obi, said it was confident of defeating its opponents in the state in 2027. The presidential and National Assembly elections are scheduled for January 16, 2027.