The minister of works, Dave Umahi, has clarified on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway project implementation, saying that it is the section one of the project that is 70 per cent completed.

Mr Umahi made the clarification in an interview with joutnalists during a tour of some bridges on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, on Thursday.

“Some of you reported that I said the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway was 70 per cent done and will be finished by January 2026.

“That is not what I said. We were dealing with section one, and then, we said, as at today, that section one, which is 47.47km, has been 70 per cent completed,” he said.

The minister said that the entire Section One of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway would be completed by January 2026.

Mr Umahi said that the coastal highway would be tolled.

“On the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which he also inspected, Umahi said: “We checked five bridges, and we discovered that we have a problem in as much as the standard headroom in bridge design is 5.6 metres.”

He noted that some of the bridges were up to 6.2 metres while some were 5.6 metres.

“The least we had was one that was 5.4 metres.”

He regretted that some of the beams were being hit by vehicles, posing dangers.

“Of the five bridges we inspected, our directive is that we are going to descend the carriageway.

“ We are going to dig up to one metre and then reconstruct the carriageway,” he said.

Mr Umahi said that the aim was to create headroom that would be up to 6.5 metres.

He directed that the minimum requirement henceforth would be 6.5 metres to achieve the desired results.

The minister said he had directed that the Alapako Bridge in Ogun should be closed.

“The way it is now is very dangerous because a lot of the beams are compromised by vehicles.”

(NAN)