Raila to Use His New AU Position to Push for Construction of 6,000-Kilometre Highway from Kenya to Nigeria

Opposition leader Raila Odinga says he will push for the construction of a Trans-African highway that includes a 6,000-kilometre Mombasa-Lagos highway.

The Trans-African Highway project, which proposes construction of nine highways to cover a combined 60,000 kilometres across the continent, was launched in 1971 but failed to see the light of day.

“One of them will stretch 8,000 kilometers between Cairo (Egypt) and Dakar (Senegal); another for 8,000 kilometers between Cairo and Cape Town; a third for 6,000 kilometers between Lagos and Mombasa; and a fourth for 4,700 kilometers between Dakar and Lagos (Nigeria),” says Odinga.

“That is the Trans-Sahelian Highway, which runs 4,500 kilometers between Dakar in Senegal and N’Djamena in Chad. Although the others are only partially finished, countries are progressively opening them section-by-section. It is just one example of what we plan to complete,”  he added during his address at Duke University in the US on Wednesday.

Raila, who was last week appointed as African Union High Representative for Infrastructure Development, says he will use the position to push for the implementation of the road network.

“I accepted the appointment as AU’s High Representative for Infrastructure Development Championing to spearhead the modernisation and upgrading of selected Trans African Highway Corridors and their missing links,” Odinga says.