NIGERIANS have knocked Minister of Works, Mr David Umahi, for attacking Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State, who was critical of his response on Arise TV when asked to estimate the cost of Lagos-Calabar Highway per kilometre.

In a video that went viral on Friday, Governor Makinde had rebuked Umahi for his refusal to provide vivid details on the project’s per-kilometre cost, following a tense interaction between the minister and Arise TV host, Rufai Oseni. 

Umahi had described Mr Oseni’s request to provide the cost details of the project as ‘elemetary,’ describing himself as a ‘professor of engineering.’

Lagos-Calabar Highway Source: The Africa Report

But this did not go down well with Governor Makinde, who stressed the importance of accountability and transparency in public contracts.”When we constructed the Oyo–Iseyin road, it cost about N9.99 billion for 34–35 kilometres, averaging N238 million per kilometre. Meanwhile, the Iseyin–Ogbomoso road, 76 kilometres with two bridges, came to roughly N43 billion, about N500 million per kilometre,” Makinde said. “If these figures can be shared for state projects, why not provide at least an average cost for the coastal highway?”

READ ALSO: Nigeria to spend $2.45bn fixing 12km Lagos bridge – 30x Egypt’s cost for 20.5-km span

However, Mr Umahi, a former governor of Ebonyi State, reacted to Mr Makinde’s criticism, dismissing his claims as ignorant. Speaking during an inspection tour of the Keffi Bridge and the Nasarawa–Toto Road projects, alongside the state governor, Mr Abdullahi Sule, on Saturday, Mr Umahi said: “I heard that my brother and friend, Governor Makinde of Oyo state, said something about the cost per kilometre. I don’t want to join issues with him. I think he is an engineer, I think he is an electrician, they call it ‘elect-elect’. But this road construction matter, ‘elect-elect no reach there’,” Umahi said.

“I am his senior both in governance and in engineering practice. So, anything he doesn’t understand, he should call me and ask. I have great respect for him as my friend and brother, but he should withdraw the statement that I’m dancing around. I never danced around. If he insists, he should come for a debate, which is very important.”

Mr Umahi said there was no ambiguity in cost per kilometre, noting, “I am teaching them that cost per kilometre can be divided into estimated cost, which has elements of variance, and average cost, which is definitive. The average cost of a definitive project and the estimated cost are probable elements.”

“When the project is completed, and you remove what you didn’t use, such as contingencies and VOP, then you have your actual cost. “When somebody who is dangling without knowledge goes to ask AI what the difference is between cost per kilometre and average cost, I’m happy that AI told him exactly what I said,” the minister noted.

The controversial Lagos-Calabar Highway is estimated to cost $11 billion-$13 billion. President Tinubu’s son, Seyi, owned an offshore company with the son of a tycoon who got the contract to build the highway, leaked corporate documents revealed.

READ ALSO: Corruption: Tinubu’s son, Seyi, linked with company handling $13bn Lagos-Calabar Highway

The contract was awarded without any public bidding process, and a minister told OCCRP the government was facing a legal challenge. In May 2024, the government announced the first phase of building by Hitech Construction Company Ltd., which is a subsidiary of a conglomerate owned by the brothers Ronald and Gilbert Chagoury, Economy Post earlier reported.

Nigerians tackle Umahi

However, Mr Umahi’s response did not go down well with our respondents, some of who described his comments as ‘arrogant.’

A Professor of Economics at a South-East Nigeria university, Robert Ukadike, described Mr Umahi’s explanation as “an arrogant way of dismissing a very important public accountability question.”

According to Prof Ukadike, “It was an opportunity missed. All he needed was to show his critics that he is better than them by explaining the step by step way of arriving at the cost of a road construction. However, he chose to dismiss those questions as unimportant. Besides, if he claims that one can only understand the actual cost of a project when a project is completed, how then was the the cost of the road estimated in the first place?”

A civil rights lawyer, Ms Abigail Odotomi, described the response as unclear and “an indicatiion that public officers do not understand that they are employees of the people.”

“Any Nigerian has a right to know the cost of a public service such as a contract, hence the Freedom of Information Act. As long as you are using public funds for the project, people must scrutinise you. But when you tend to show the people that no one can question you as a ‘professor of engineering,’ then something is wrong with the contract.”

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Mr Umahi had said in August that the structural rehabilitation of the Third Mainland Bridge, an 11.8-kilometre span in Lagos State, would cost N3.6 trillion, which was then equivalent to over $2.45 billion.

However, to build Africa’s longest bridge, known as 6th October Bridge, Egypt spent just 200 million Egyptian pounds in 1996, which was equivalent to $4.12 million at that time but $77.4 million at August 2025 exchange rate. Hence the Nigerian government is planning to spend 30 times the cost of 1986 Bridge on the repair of Third Mainland Bridge, which is nearly half in size of the Egypt bridge.

A Lagos-based accountant, Mr Kayode Bailey, said lack of transparency in government circles makes Mr Umahi’s contract quotations hard to believe.

“He should provide the details of the cost of the contract. It is our right to know, and when a government official claims that a quetion to that effect is ‘elementary,’ then there is a problem. This is not the right attitude to accountability at all.”