In March 2026, I spoke at a forum on the economic implications of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway. My argument was straightforward: this 700-kilometre road represents one of the most significant land value events in modern Nigerian history — and the window to position ahead of it is closing faster than most investors realise.
This article sets out the reasoning behind that view, and what it means specifically for landowners and investors in Eko Atlantic City.
The Highway in Context
The Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway is a Federal Government of Nigeria infrastructure commitment to connect Lagos to Calabar along the southern coastline. It runs through some of the most economically significant terrain in the country: the Lagos metropolitan corridor, through Ogun State's coastline, Ondo, Delta, Bayelsa, Rivers, Akwa Ibom, and Cross River. The highway traverses oil-producing regions, agricultural belts, and — most consequentially for this analysis — the emerging coastal development corridor that includes Eko Atlantic City.
The highway is not simply a transport project. Infrastructure of this scale catalyses land use change, accelerates development along the corridor, and creates value that flows disproportionately to landowners who positioned early. This is the repeated pattern of major infrastructure investment in comparable markets across Asia, the Gulf, and East Africa over the past three decades — though, as set out below, it is a pattern that can also reverse where corridor discipline fails.
"There is a major opportunity in this coastal highway of over 700 kilometres, with the possibility of maintaining the integrity of that corridor. We have about 700 square kilometres of potential development."
— Olawale Opayinka, speaking at the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway forum, 2026Five Implications for Eko Atlantic Investors
The Risk You Must Not Underestimate
Corridor Risk: The Pattern That Destroys Value
Nigeria's road corridors have a documented history of generating value and then destroying it through unplanned development — informal settlement encroachment, inadequate land use controls, and the capture of corridor land by speculative interests that develop it sub-optimally. The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway corridor is the most visible example. If the coastal highway corridor is not actively managed for development integrity, the enterprise-value opportunity becomes something far more modest. Investors should pay close attention to the land governance frameworks being established along the route — and prioritise parcels within planning frameworks, like Eko Atlantic's, that have demonstrated capacity to enforce development discipline.
How the number is derived.
The projection is not a headline. It is an actuarial calculation built from a method first developed for Eko Atlantic City and corroborated by a real transaction at Azuri Towers. Every figure below is stated as enterprise development value — not GDP — on a discounted, present-value basis, in USD.
In 2011, on a deliberately pessimistic actuarial basis, I valued the enterprise development value of Eko Atlantic's tower product at approximately $19,000 per m² of floor area — the discounted present value of capital and rental income over the asset life, valuing the buildable product rather than raw land.
That basis is corroborated by realised Azuri Towers transactions: an office floor sold at $5,700 per m² against rent of $720 per m² per year. Discounted over the holding period, the combined enterprise value is consistent with the $19,000 per m² figure. The model is anchored to a sale that actually happened, not to theory alone.
Land area → tower floor area → enterprise value → sensitivity band
Eko Atlantic comprises roughly 10 km² of reclaimed land, of which more than half — about 5,000,000 m² — is tower floor area. That gives a blended, city-wide intensity of roughly 0.5 m² of floor area per m² of land, across all uses including roads, open space, and low-rise.
The corridor represents approximately 700 km of frontage at 1 km depth — 700 km², or 700 million m² of land. Applied at Eko Atlantic's blended intensity, that implies on the order of 350 million m² of tower floor area across the development horizon.
The band reflects one transparent sensitivity — the value each m² of that floor area realises, relative to Eko Atlantic:
Corridor product realises about one-tenth of EAC value, and develops at lower density.
Corridor approaches EAC intensity at the same pessimistic EAC pricing.
Corridor approaches full Eko Atlantic value parity.
The spread is not imprecision. It is the honest width between conservative and aggressive assumptions on the two variables that dominate any 50-year projection: development intensity and value per m². No long-horizon estimate should claim more precision than its weakest input allows.
The discount rate and the detailed assumption set behind this calculation are shared directly with clients under engagement. The figures above are enterprise development value on a discounted, present-value, USD basis over a 50-year horizon — first presented at the DAWN / BRACE Commission forum, March 2026.
What This Means Practically
For a landowner in Eko Atlantic City today, the coastal highway is not an abstraction. It is an argument for why the city's commercial and mixed-use districts deserve a higher development premium than their current pricing suggests — and why the time to develop or partner is now rather than after the highway's value has been fully priced in.
For an investor evaluating entry, it provides a structural long-duration thesis that is independent of near-term naira volatility, interest rate cycles, or political transitions. The geography does not change. The demographics do not change. The infrastructure — once built — is permanent.
- Review your district allocation. Parcels in the Downtown Business District and Marina District are most directly positioned to benefit from the commercial demand the highway will generate. Low-rise residential parcels are less directly exposed — but benefit from the general uplift to Eko Atlantic's profile.
- Consider the development timeline. If you are holding land with a five-year horizon, the highway thesis supports holding or developing now. If your horizon is shorter, the analysis changes.
- Do not conflate the corridor opportunity with the Eko Atlantic opportunity. They are related but distinct. Eko Atlantic's value is real and immediate. The coastal highway is additive — it increases the ceiling, not the floor.
- Monitor corridor governance actively. The quality of planning and development control along the highway route will determine how much of the potential value is captured. Engage with this conversation — it is not academic.
A Note on Timing
I am often asked whether it is too late to invest in Eko Atlantic, and now whether the coastal highway thesis has already been priced in. My answer is consistent: in a market with Eko Atlantic's fundamentals, the question of timing is less important than the question of conviction. Investors who understand what this city is becoming, who own the right parcels in the right districts, and who have the patience to hold through construction phases and macroeconomic volatility, will be rewarded.
Investors who are trying to time a short-term trade in a market this illiquid will be frustrated. This is a long-duration asset class. The coastal highway reinforces that framing, rather than changing it.
Position ahead of the infrastructure premium, not after it.
Makaya Consult advises landowners and investors in Eko Atlantic City on development strategy, investment timing, and transaction due diligence. Independent. Rigorous. No conflicting mandates.
Arrange a Consultation →