Ogun State Governor Dapo Abiodun says the 28 kilometer stretch of the federal government’s 700 kilometer Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway running through the state will be finished before the end of 2026, giving a major boost to the proposed Ogun Deep Sea Port and other coastal investments.
Speaking while inaugurating the reconstructed Gao-Ibiade Road in Ogun Waterside, the governor said the highway would unlock the area’s economic potential by providing the infrastructure needed for industrialization, maritime development and large scale investment. He commended President Bola Tinubu for initiating the project.
Abiodun said he had received fresh assurances that the Ogun section would be completed this year, and that his administration had deliberately secured an alignment running between three and five kilometers from the coastline to support the deep sea port. He said the absence of an efficient evacuation corridor had previously been the biggest obstacle to the port, with the only route being the Sagamu-Benin Expressway about 35 kilometers away.
He said improved connectivity had renewed investor interest in the corridor, and disclosed that talks with the NNPC had advanced plans to revive the abandoned Olokola Liquefied Natural Gas project alongside intensified oil exploration. The convergence of the highway, port, oil exploration and the revived gas project, he said, would make Ogun Waterside one of Nigeria’s fastest growing economic corridors.
Abiodun also revealed plans for a naval base and dockyard within the proposed port complex to strengthen maritime security, and lamented decades of neglect in Ogun Waterside, recalling that when he first visited in the 1990s it lacked motorable roads and basic infrastructure.
