Lagos-Calabar coastal highway: FG opens dialogue with foreign investors over demolition

Nigerian investors in the diaspora and their foreign counterparts on Monday in Houston, Texas, have commended the Federal Government of Nigeria for opening a dialogue with those whose investments were affected by the recent re-alignment of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway.

The Minister of Works, Engineer David Umahi, had last month opened a channel of communication with the affected investors during a meeting with protesting members of the Coalition for Civil Society of Nigeria at the Ministry of Works headquarters in Abuja.

Senior members of the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu-led federal government are expected to meet with delegates from the affected investors under the Winhomes scheme in the coming days.

ALSO READ: We’re deploying technology to modernise operational processes – FCSC Chairman

While commending the government for finally heeding the call for responsible governance, the investors urged them to ensure that past wrongdoings are properly corrected.

During a world press conference, Engr. Stella Okengwu, the Coordinator of Direct Foreign Investment and Chief Executive Officer of Winhomes Global Services Limited, described the development as a “historic and hopeful” moment.

She stressed that this engagement is “more than a meeting; it is a defining moment of dialogue, restoration, and reconciliation.”

Okengwu commended President Tinubu and Engineer Umahi for “demonstrating courage and statesmanship by listening to the cry for justice and opening the door for peaceful engagement.”

She noted that this gesture “sends a strong signal to the world that Nigeria is serious about protecting foreign direct investment, especially from its own citizens all over the world.”

She highlighted the now-demolished US$250 million Winhomes Estates project in Okun Ajah as a “beacon of that commitment,” stating that investors “brought our hard-earned resources home, not to exploit, not to speculate, but to rebuild, to restore confidence, and to create jobs.”

Okengwu added that the demolition of the estate without proper notice, dialogue, or compensation “broke more than walls — it broke trust” and “sent shockwaves across global Nigerian communities who have long waited to invest but feared precisely this kind of uncertainty.”

Okengwu emphasised that the year-long protest was “never political” or “anti-government,” as many of the investors had supported the current administration. She described the protest as a “call for fairness, for restitution, for the rule of law,” adding that “no meaningful national development can thrive outside of justice.”

She called the estate a “unifier” and a “blueprint for inclusive development where Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Ijaw, Efik, and others invested side by side, not as tribes, but as Nigerians.”

The investors respectfully pleaded for “the demolished properties to be properly evaluated and adequate compensation paid to Winhomes, so that every affected investor is compensated thereafter.”

They also requested that “projects of such a diaspora magnitude receive presidential protection going forward, so that Nigeria can finally reverse the capital flight we have been lamenting for decades.”

Dr Kimberly Stark, an African-American investor in the scheme, stated that the government has “restored their hope with the opening of the channel of dialogue.”

She added that “this single gesture, if followed by transparent resolution and firm enforcement, sends a strong signal to the global market that Nigeria is no longer a place where investors are ignored or displaced without recourse.”

Dr. Stark maintained that “if sustained, this approach will strengthen Nigeria’s ranking on the ease of doing business, investment protection, and investor confidence indices.”

She advised the government to “go further by establishing a Standing Diaspora Investments Protection Desk,” urging them to “institutionalise this spirit of dialogue and protection.“