The federal government will close a whole carriageway of the Eko Bridge in Lagos State in preparation for its repair.

The Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, made this known on Wednesday in Lagos during the site handover of the Carter Bridge to China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC).

“By the midnight of this coming Sunday, that full carriageway must be closed. The other carriageway will be working.

” I am directing the director of bridges and the controller of works in Lagos to liaise with Lagos State Government and mount campaign of awareness and see if we can get an alternative route.

“We will not allow people to endanger their lives. We are responsible administration, and it is a problem not caused by us but a challenge before us.

“The best solution is that we are going to be lifting a whole span of the affected section,” Mr Umahi said.

According to him, the pier and the pier cap would be exposed.

“The solutions will now be as follows: On the section that has been cut off, there will be piling.

“We are going to do additional piling around the pier cap and cast a new pier cap and then strengthen the pier cap and replace the damaged piles.

“Before we do this, we are commissioning Buildwell (the contractor) and divers to do a thorough investigation of what and what are affected so that we can incorporate them in our final design,” he said.

Mr Umahi directed that this should be completed within 10 days.

” I want to apologise to Lagosians. We are solving problems we didn’t create.

“When we came on board, some sections of Eko Bridge were totally burned down because people were staying under the bridge selling chemicals and all sorts of wares, and they put fire, and it was  burnt down.

“Buildwell company was already contracted before we came on board, but funding stopped progress of that project until President Bola Tinubu came and gave it a very serious push.”

Mr Umahi gave the assurance that the federal government would also take immediate action on the Third Mainland Bridge but would not demolish it.

“We have invited an external expert who will reconfirm about six investigations already done, and that is ongoing now.

“He is going to design how we are going to strengthen the piers that are deteriorated, piers that have been removed from the pier caps, and then we will come up with a cost on how to repair the Third Mainland Bridge.”

He called on Nigerians to appreciate infrastructure development and other efforts of the Tinubu administration. 

(NAN)