Nigeria hosted the Ministers of works and roads infrastructures as well as their directors and other key technical experts from four West Africa countries namely Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Togo in a three-day Steering Committee and Experts’ Meetings. These meetings were held in respect of the Abidjan – Lagos Corridor Highway Development (ALCHDP) being implemented by the ECOWAS Commission.
The ECOWAS vision of regional integration seeks to enhance infrastructure development recognized as a principal factor for economic growth and integration of people. Therefore, Transport Infrastructure has been prioritized in the ECOWAS commission 2040 Vision Strategy Paper: ‘’Towards an ECOWAS of Peoples’’. As part of this vision the Heads of State during the 42nd Ordinary Summit held in February 2013, formally approved the construction of a homogenous six-lane (2×3 lanes) highway corridor to link the five countries. This super highway tagged ‘’Abidjan-Lagos Highway’’ links major cities and crosses a high economic potential zone with about 75% of West Africa’s volume of trade.
The Abidjan – Lagos corridor which is part of the Dakar-Lagos Trans African Highway is an ECOWAS Commission project of six lane (3-lane dual) carriage standardized highway of about 1028 km long. It links a number of densely populated and economically dynamic towns in West Africa namely Abidjan, Accra, Lomé, Cotonou, and Lagos. The corridor also links highly dynamic seaports which service the region’s landlocked countries of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger.
According to the Project Treaty signed by the 5 Heads of State and Government, an Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Management Authority (ALCoMA) will be established to construct, manage, and operate the 6-lane Highway and related economic development activities. The Project is currently in the study stage and in the interim, a Steering Committee made up of Ministers in-charge of Road Infrastructure from the five (5) Corridor Member Countries (CMCs) was established by the Presidents with Nigeria being the Chairperson, to provide oversight and high-level guidance on the implementation of the Program. The Steering Committee is supported by a Committee of Technical Experts (Senior Engineering Officials) from the Ministries in charge of Road Works in the five CMCs. Under the supervision of the Infrastructure Department of the ECOWAS Commission, led by the Commissioner for Infrastructure or his/her representative, a Project Implementation Unit (PIU) has been established to provide dedicated hands-on support for the day-to-day implementation of the technical studies and related activities.
This Steering Committee and experts’ Meetings are the 16th in the series. This 16th edition held at 9.30am daily from 1st to 3rd of June 2022 at Transcorp Hilton Hotel Abuja. Whereas the first and second days were dedicated to technical review of the progress of the Project by the Technical Experts, the third day was for the Steering Committee under the Chairmanship of Nigeria Minister of Works, His Excellency Babatunde Fashola SAN.
Other technical experts in the project, ECOWAS, Africa Development Bank, European Union and key stakeholders were part of the Meetings. The media in its traditional role of information dissemination and education attended and covered the both the opening and closing ceremonies.
