Nigeria government has announced plans to spend about N270 billion within three years for the rehabilitation of 50 bridges, following the decay of many of the existing ones.
Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, spoke on Tuesday in Lagos, while inspecting the rehabilitation of Lagos Ring Road Bridge.
Fashola explained that: “We now have a three-year plan affecting over 50 bridges across the country for maintenance, repairs and restoration.
“Many of the bridges we built in the country over the last four, five decades have not been under any form of maintenance.
“We now have a three-year plan affecting over 50 bridges across the country for maintenance, repairs and restoration.’’
The minister, who lamented that many of the bridges in Lagos and across the country had suffered neglect and had not been undergoing routine maintenance, directed engineers to begin work to realign the Apongbon bridge
“The work we have come to inspect was awarded some years back when there was an indication of some mis-alignments here on the Lagos Outer Ring Road which is the beginning of what leads on to the Third Mainland Bridge itself which is just about here.
“And it is being caused by erosion, sand filling and other activities.
“This road has moved as a result of some sub-soil displacement,’’ Fashola said.
He decried indiscriminate parking and trading activities in some parts of Ebute Ero toward the Third Mainland Bridge.
“I want to appeal to those people who use those areas as car parks and trading to start moving voluntarily in their own best interest.
“We intend to repose our right of way while work is going on on the Outer Marina to free traffic,’’ he said.
