Abidjan-Lagos highway: ECOWAS moves to perfect design for project

The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, has said it was set to perfect the design for Abidjan-Lagos highway development project for implementation.

The regional body disclosed this in Lagos yesterday, at the opening ceremony of the ongoing three-day workshop it organised to meet the relevant stakeholders for the necessary validation.

It also noted that the completion of such project would spur robust economic activities among member states.

Head of Roads and Railyway at ECOWAS Commission, Mr Ashoke Maliki, said: “Today’s (yesterday) event is important because member states, comprising Nigeria, Benin Republic, Togo, Ghana and Cote d’Ivoire, are here to look at the report presented by the consultant, validate it based on their experiences along the corridor and approve such report for investment.

“The Abisjan-Lagos corridor is very important corridor when it comes to African Continental Free Trade Area initiative.”

In his remarks, Chairman of Expert Committee for the project, Engr. Ebere Izunobi, said the project, which is about 1028km, would elevate lives of people along the corridor.

Izunobi, who is from the Federal Ministry of Works, said: “We are at the design stage and part of the components of the stage is the spatial development initiative, SDI, which is to agglomerate all the projects concerning individual companies, socio-economic activities along the corridor that are going to feed into the road and make it functional.

“By the end of this year, we would have been done with the design which includes environmental impact assessment, EIA, engineering design, project scoping and tender document.”By next year, we intend to package the procurement of the main road construction, then construction follows after.

“Roads are always meaningful if projects are linked to them and if they help businesses to develop. That is why the ECOWAS commission, which is coordinating the project on behalf of the member countries, have decided to get a consultant to look at that SDI and the project and its impact to the communities and improve the implementation.”