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The 430-mile motorway linking Nigerian mega-city Lagos with Calabar city, near the border with Cameroon, is being built at an estimated cost of about £8.5bn
12:25, Thu, Jun 11, 2026 Updated: 12:30, Thu, Jun 11, 2026
The road will cut through miles of protected forest (Image: Getty)
A vast coastal motorway is under construction along Africa's Atlantic coastline, despite mounting concerns. The 430-mile highway, connecting Nigeria’s sprawling megacity capital Lagos with Calabar near the border with Cameroon, is being built at an estimated cost of around £8.5 billion. The ambitious project is the vision of Nigerian president Bola Tinubu, who has vowed to “revolutionise” the West African nation’s transport network and drive tourism growth. At a ceremony marking the opening of the first stretch of the highway, he said: “We have a road that will outlive all of us here.”
However, serious concerns have been raised by environmental groups, who warn that the highway will be highly exposed to predicted sea level rises over the coming decade. Environmental campaigner Nnimmo Bassey, former chairman of Friends of the Earth International, has described the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway as “the very embodiment of climate denial.” “We are witnessing a very rapid rise in sea level along the Nigerian coastline,” he warned, adding that the project, due for completion in 2028, will be “highly vulnerable to rising sea levels.”
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Construction is expected to be complete in 2028 (Image: Getty)
Nigeria faces a particularly acute threat from rising seas. The fishing port of Aiyetoro in Ondo State lost 50 buildings in a single “ocean surge” in 2024 and is believed to have surrendered around 80% of its land to the encroaching sea, reports the Mirror.
Its population today stands at roughly 5,000 — a dramatic decline from 30,000 in 2006. Yet President Tinubu remains resolute in pushing the project forward, placing it at the heart of his re-election campaign.
The road has languished in the planning phase for nearly 50 years, but Tinubu and his allies regard it as a crucial milestone in Nigeria’s economic progress.
Orji Uchenna Orji, an adviser to Nigeria’s public works minister David Umahi, said: “The Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will be one of the greatest omens in the political and economic trajectory of this nation. It is going to be a road with the biggest economic corridor in Africa and will stimulate economic development and the transportation ecosystem.”
The road will run for 400 miles along Nigeria's coast (Image: Getty)
The government is set to contribute 30% of the road’s $12 billion budget, with contractor Hitech Construction Company Ltd shouldering the remaining costs. Hitech will recoup its investment by collecting tolls on the highway for 15 years.
Hitech is also the driving force behind Eko Atlantic, a privately funded $6 billion (£4.5 billion) futuristic megacity development near Lagos. Constructed on land reclaimed from the ocean, the so-called “Dubai of Africa” will be shielded from flooding by a five-mile concrete barrier known as the Great Wall of Lagos.
The firm has outlined plans to safeguard the new road with comparable seawalls, alongside natural defences such as mangrove belts and dunes, which will “reduce erosion and absorb carbon.”
Much of Nigeria’s natural environment has already been degraded by oil and gas extraction, and concerns have been raised that the super-highway will inflict further environmental harm. In the south-eastern state of Akwa Ibom, the Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway will cut through Stubbs Creek Forest, a protected area that is home to a range of endangered species.
Nigeria's president says the road will spark an economic boom (Image: Getty)
According to the Nigerian Conservation Foundation, the nation has already lost nearly 90% of its forest cover over the past 30 years, and a 2022 study in the Journal of African Earth Sciences reports that 89% of the 180 kilometres of coastline in Lagos State retreated by an average of 2.80 metres per year between 1973 and 2019.
The environmental impact assessment for the Lagos State section of the road, carried out by the Nigerian firm Natural Eco Capital and submitted to the Ministry of Public Works in May 2024 — two months after construction commenced — suggests that a “sea level rise of 0.5 metres along the Lagos coast would not affect the highway project.”
It states that a 1.5°C increase in global temperatures would lead to a 0.48-metre rise in sea level, rising to 0.55 metres in the event of a 2°C increase.
However, current IPCC projections suggest that warming will likely surpass 3°C by 2100, resulting in sea level rise of more than 0.6 metres.
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