The Minister of Works, Engr. David Umahi, has bagged the Silverbird Group Extraordinary Personality of the Year award, an honour conferred on him on Sunday, March 1, 2026, at Eko Hotels & Suites, Lagos.
Senior Special Assistant to the Minister on Media, Francis Nwaze disclosed this in a statement on Monday.
The award ceremony, organised by Silverbird Group, brought together top government officials, lawmakers, technocrats, and stakeholders from across the country, all drawn by a shared recognition of a minister whose tenure has come to symbolise scale, speed, and ambition in Nigeria’s infrastructure drive.
Speaking at the event on behalf of the Minister of Works, the Minister of State (Works), Barr. Bello Goronyo, described the honour as a deserved recognition of visible performance and hard choices taken in the national interest.
“We cannot but register our sincere gratitude and appreciation for this award for identifying our own, the Honourable Minister of Works, HE Senator Engr. David Umahi, CON, for the works he has been doing in this country”, he said.
Goronyo told the audience that Umahi’s impact since assuming office had been defined by experience-driven leadership and the deployment of innovative construction technologies to solve long-standing infrastructure challenges.
“This man brought to bear lots of experience, skills, and innovative technologies in the road construction industry”, he said.
He pointed to landmark achievements in road construction, anchored on four legacy projects now reshaping national connectivity. These include the 750km Lagos–Calabar Coastal Highway, the 1,068km Sokoto–Badagry Super Highway, the Transhara corridor stretching from Calabar through Ebonyi and Benue to Abuja, and the 420km Akwanga–Jos–Bauchi–Gombe–Borno corridor.
According to him, these projects, alongside accelerated roads and bridges construction across the six geopolitical zones, have redefined expectations of what is possible within a single administration.
Goronyo was emphatic that these gains did not occur in isolation, attributing the momentum to the infrastructure-first posture of President Bola Tinubu.
“We have to say that all these achievements are recorded because of our president, HE Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR.
“The minister has mandated me to dedicate the award to HE Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR for the support, for all he has been doing, for prioritizing infrastructure as key, and to dedicate the award also to our team, the Ministry of Works, the management as well as the contractors.”
“For us in the Ministry of Works, it’s another feather for us to continue to fly and work hard so that Nigeria will reach the desires and aspirations of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu”, he said.
On its part, Silverbird Group noted that since Umahi took charge as Minister of Works, the Ministry currently managing 2,065 ongoing projects across the country. The organisers observed that his mission had remained clear and consistent: fix existing roads, build new ones, and ensure they stand the test of time. According to them, the scale and intent of the legacy projects alone speak volumes about his leadership.
