Some employees of the Landmark Beach Resort in the Oniru area of Lagos, staged a protest on Wednesday, as the federal government begins the sand filling of the beachfront for the construction of the coastal highway.
Scores of employees at the beach resort carried placards
with inscriptions ‘#SaveLandmarkBeachResort’ and ‘Save Our Jobs’, and chanted
songs of dissent in unison.
The 700-kilometre Lagos-Calabar coastal highway is expected
to run through nine states and would have a railroad running through the
middle.
Earlier this month, Dave Umahi, minister of works, said the
project will not affect the Landmark facilities, adding that the project’s
corridor has been reduced to 50 meters and only the shoreline could be lost.
“What could be lost
is the shoreline and people that go to play at the shoreline, but his (Landmark
CEO) facilities are all intact because we reduced the corridor to 50 meters. I
saw it, there is no permanent structure, other than a few shanties along that
shoreline that would be affected,” Umahi said in an interview on Arise
Television.
“So I told him no single job will be lost because all his
distance is very much intact. There is no single one of them that is to be demolished.”
In an interview with Arise Television on April 7, Paul
Onwuanibe, the chief executive officer of Landmark Africa, said the original
plan for the coastal highway did not include the beachfront.
The businessman who obtained the land in 2007, said “the
alignment was changed so that instead of it running on the land side of
Landmark, it is going to run on the beach side”.
“So that is where this issue came up is that the alignment
was changed. Our request is simply to go back to the original alignment,
nothing is wrong with it,” he added.
“Now they are looking to put the road on the beachfront and
just immediately after Landmark it turns and goes back to its original
alignment.
“Going back to the original alignment saves our business and
saves the government a lot of money.”
In a series of posts on X, Onwuanibe described the highway
as a “laudable project that should enhance tourism rather than destroy it”,
adding that the management of Landmark is in “active talks” with the state and
federal governments.
He said the government has assured him that there would be
no disruption to his business and “a small number of other minor reroutes may
be required to sustain the existing socioeconomic activity along the course of
this road”.
Meanwhile, Atiku Abubakar, former vice-president, had
accused President Bola Tinubu of placing his personal business interest ahead
of Nigerians with the coastal highway project.
The former presidential candidate added that the project
will lead to a loss of over 12,000 direct and indirect jobs and over $200
million in investments.
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