The federal government has taken delivery of the second Niger bridge from the contractor, Julius Berger, seven months after the previous administration inaugurated it.

Works minister David Umahi, while addressing journalists shortly after he was conducted around the road and the facilities on Sunday by Julius Berger managing director Lars Richter, said that he was satisfied with the level of work done.

Mr Umahi, while commending the previous and present administration for doing quite a lot to bring the work to fruition, described the job as “impeccable, very beautiful and well completed.”

The minister added, “We have a light issue, and we’ve put things together on how to permanently have light, especially at night. What we have agreed to do is deploy a solar solution in the coming weeks so that every night we don’t have to run diesel.

“The roads are going to be completed when we have completed the two interchanges; one is taking us off from Asaba town to cut off the traffic, and the other is going to be done by Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) Ltd. to avoid Onitsha town and take you straight to Obosi.”

Mr Umahi said President Bola Tinubu “is very committed to the project and we are going to acquire more so that we can build service stations, filling stations, restaurants, supermarkets and other facilities as we see in the Western world.”

The works minister also mentioned that the federal government was “determined to do that; the need to do this with the interchanges is going to be a very smart one so that over the years we can have a beautiful and maintained road.”

The minister further assured security with the bridge by providing closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras and some security personnel so that one could get security assistance within five minutes.

Mr Richter said the event was a technical handover after the previous administration inaugurated the project.

(NAN)