17/10/2026
That viral comparison is technically flawed and misleading . It compares two completely different engineering realities :
LET US ENLIGHTEN YOU WITH FACTS , NOT EMOTION . I LEFT OPPOSITION TO SUPPORT AND DEFEND RESULT . Lagos - Calabar coastal wonder in Nigeria.
1 . The Egypt Road is NOT Same Scope :
That 10,228km Trans-African road they quote is mostly rehabilitation and grading of existing desert alignment — flat , dry , hard laterite desert soil , minimal bridges , 2-lane single carriageway, asphalt of 50-75mm .
Our Lagos-Calabar is a GREENFIELD 10-LANE superhighway — building from ZERO inside Atlantic Ocean surge , swamp , mangroves .
2 . Terrain Factor — The Biggest Cost Driver :
Egypt-South : Sahara Desert = natural sub-base , zero water table , zero settlement.
Lagos-Calabar : 750km of coastal swamp, peat clay, high water table, ocean waves . As a Civil Engineer you must know what that means PBAT is doing :
5-8 meters dewatering
Geotextile + stone columns
Concrete pavement , not asphalt — 280mm reinforced concrete designed for 50 years, not 10 years.
- Shoreline protection — rock revetment, sea wall .
Desert road = cut and fill. Coastal road = marine engineering .
3. Pavement Type :
- $1.6B road = flexible asphalt .
- Lagos-Calabar = Rigid concrete pavement (Nigeria's first along the axis ) — import of rebar, higher cement content , 4x lifespan . That alone doubles cost but saves future generations .
4. Structures & Bridges :
Egypt route has less than 50 minor bridges.
Lagos-Calabar has over 70 bridges , interchanges, 200+ culverts, toll plazas, service stations — each interchange alone is $20-30M in swamp.
5. Cost Per Km Reality Check :
$1.6B / 10,228km = $156k per km. Even a rural laterite road in Nigeria today rates $500k/km . That Egypt figure is either 1980s cost , donor-subsidized, or just grading — it cannot be a full modern highway at 2025 prices. A proper 2-lane highway in Africa is $1M-$1.5M/km.
Lagos-Calabar at $12B for 700km = ∼$17M/km — for a 10-lane concrete coastal expressway with sea defense, it is within world coastal highway benchmark . Coastal highway in USA (California) is $25-40M/km . Dubai's Jumeirah coastal road was $20M/km.
6. Economics — Naira Devaluation :
That #15 Trillion is over 8 years construction + inflation + FX at #1,500/$. If you price it in 2015 Naira, it would be #1.8 Trillion. We must not use nominal Naira to scare people.
My Conclusion as Engr with 4 decades experience :
1. Don't compare a desert footpath with an ocean concrete superhighway . One is laying carpet on dry floor, the other is building a house inside water.
Lagos-Calabar is expensive because it is difficult , first-of-its-kind , and built to last 50-100 years . Our children will thank us for the concrete, not asphalt that washes away every rainy season .
We can question transparency constructively — yes, demand BOQ — but let us not destroy a legacy infrastructure with false comparison .
Balogun Engr Michael Olusegun Feyisola
Convener @
@ O'CLOCK ⏰️ 2027
