Lekki-Epe Express Toll Road is a major Lagos watershed project. It is the first of the public private partnership (PPP) infrastructure projects completed in 2011. It holds the distinction of being the first private toll project in Africa outside of South Africa.
Nigeria is experiencing rapid urbanization and 50% of its population now live in urban centers including over 15 million people in Lagos metropolis alone. The importance of a quality road project like Lekki-Epe Expressway Toll Road cannot therefore be underestimated. Already, the project has gone a long way to alleviate the prevailing traffic problems in Lagos State. It has provided a hopeful future direction for highway infrastructure projects in megacity like Lagos.
One of the benchmarks of the Lekki-Epe Expressway project is its city toll, described as the gateway to the city's economic transformation. Constructed to high-level international standards under obvious difficult local challenges including very high traffic volumes, poor terrain and abundant rainfall, the Toll gate itself has attracted diverse views and testimonies. A cross-section of indigenous people who spoke in several interviews mounted by AfDB strongly complained that they were forced to pay toll to enter and exit their Lekki-Epe localities to and from greater Lagos city.
One truck-driver Babatunde Bamidele insisted that tolling an Expressway in a city only succeeds in worsening the traffic jam in the city. Other patronizes of the road talked to including drivers and pedestrians considered paying toll as double taxation which could go into private pockets especially as inter-state tolls were previously dismantled in Nigeria for ineffectiveness.
Remarkable economic strength and success
The positives on the other hand were many. They strongly affirmed that the project has enhanced the remarkable economic strength and success of Lagos State, offering the country the opportunity to promote its economic development in general. They claimed that the indigenous people who were originally ordinary fishermen and agrarian farmers have been fully integrated into the mainstream of Nigeria's economy.
Engineer Fatunde Alade noted that the " a great transformation has been achieved in that once village people in Ajah, Badore, Elegushi, Ajiran, Sangotedo, Abijo, Ibeju, Eti-osa, Epe and Ibeju-Lekki Local Government areas now find themselves in one of the best areas to live and work in Lagos with constantly rising modern housing estates, surrounded by many sandy beaches.
Others who also expressed satisfaction with the Lekki-Epe Expressway and Toll project hailed its guaranteed management and maintenance arrangements. They said that poor maintenance culture has been the bane of public sector infrastructure in the country and praised the State Government and African Development their fundamental transformation programmes in Lagos and Nigeria as a whole. They reasoned that road the corridor is contributing not only to the safety of Nigerian commuters, but more importantly to sustainable economic activities, thus creating a brighter future for the people and their social transformation.
A business magnate, Chief Emmanuel Agasu, said the amount of revenue generated daily by the Lekki Toll gate exemplifies the above average performance of Lagos State and the overall confidence that Nigeria's transformation is in the hands of private sector business enterprises."
The Lekki Concession Company Limited ("LCC"), is entrusted with management, upgrading, expansion and maintenance of the approximately 50 km of this pioneering project (Phase I) under a 30-year Concession Agreement. It is also leading to the construction of approximately 20 km of the Coastal Road (Phase II) on the Lekki Peninsular.
The construction at a cost of about nearly USD 350.0 million used the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model of Infrastructure delivery.
More than a road
With the Lekki-Epe Expressway, the AfDB sees more than a road. It sees other on-going and potential Bank funded infrastructure projects including for example three toll plazas in the 50 km stretch and the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge. This is said to be the first cable strayed bridge in West Africa which is already opened to the motoring public by the Lagos State government in March 2013. Most of these projects will be executed as core private sector driven infrastructure projects or enhanced PPP projects.
Above all, the projects link up with the ongoing Eko Atlantic City, a landmark project which is perhaps one of the most daring and venturesome projects in Africa. This project initially is expected to provide homes to 250,000 people and offer employment to more than 150,000. The new futurist city on reclaimed Atlantic coast includes designed waterfront areas, tree-lined streets, efficient transport systems and mixed-use plots that combine residential areas with leisure facilities, offices and shops. All things considered, the city is expected to enhance the status of Lagos and create a new and stronger financial hub for West Africa.
For this major undertaking, public and private investors, planners, engineers and contractors have been synergizing to ensure that private and corporate capacities work together to transform part of the Atlantic Ocean into an inhabited ocean city that will be one of the wonders of the 21st century.
The multi-billion dollar investment has already brought on board local and international banks and private investors vying for exciting prime investment property opportunities. Lekki-Epe Expressway Toll Road is a gateway to another AfDB private sector supported transport project, the Lekki Deep Sea Port.
