The Federal Government on Tuesday said traffic would be diverted on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway around the Makun section for 72 hours to enable the contractor to install a bridge beam.

The Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, Olukayode Popoola, said this during inspection of ongoing reconstruction/rehabilitation of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway project.

He appealed for understanding and urged the public to disregard rumours that the road would be closed.

Mr Popoola said traffic would be diverted on a stretch of just 400 meters around the construction zone where beams were to be laid on the flyover under construction at Makun near Sagamu Interchange.

He said the diversion would begin on Wednesday July 28 and end on Friday 30 July, a total of 72 hours.

He explained that the reason for the diversion was to allow for safe installation of cross beams, adding that vehicles would not be allowed to ply the area where the beams would be laid to prevent accidents.

“The purpose of this inspection is to check the extent of the flyover bridges being constructed on this Lagos-Ibadan Expressway.

“The contractor will launch this beam you are seeing on the ground here at Makun and that will take us about 72 hours to complete,” he said.

Mr Popoola said contrary to media speculations, it would only take 72 hours to launch the beams of the flyover because the diversion points had already been created about 400 meters away from the construction zone.

“Any vehicle coming from Ibadan that is approaching this Makun at kilometer 37 plus 100 will now have to shift to Lagos bound lane and then after this place, another 400 meters away, he will now come back to his own lane originally.

“We are not closing the road. It is not partial closure and it is not total closure, motorists will still be allowed to move but there will be diversion, 400 metres away and 400 meters after where we are working,” he said.

The controller said adequate road diversion signs had been provided and there would be collaboration between traffic regulatory and law enforcement agencies to avert gridlock.

He appealed to motorists to be lane disciplined and obey all diversion signs and traffic laws and assured that there would be seamless movement on the highway.

He said increased alternative funding was speeding up construction works on the highway, assuring that both section one of the project being handled by Julius Berger and section two handled by RCC would be delivered in 2022.

Mr Popoola said 31 kilometers of work had been completed to the final stage out of 43.6 kilometers of section one being handled by Julius Berger bringing the total completion to 76 per cent.

“We have achieved about 45 per cent completion of the bridge alone, if you add it together with the pavement work that we have done, the average completion percentage is in the neighborhood of 76 per cent,” he said.