Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has urged commuters in the state to be patient as well as obey traffic officers as they direct people on road diversions to alternative routes as maintenance work is set to commence on a section of Eko Bridge.
Governor Sanwo-Olu stated this at Costain during an assessment Inspection with some state government officials and the Federal Controller of Works, Adedamola Kuti, on the commencement of maintenance works on a section of the bridge.
The Governor said there was the need to take precautionary measures to repair the Eko Bridge and other ones in the state assuring that the contractor would get to work to see very quickly how maintenance could be carried out.
While lamenting the manner Lagos bridges have been abused, he assured that the State’s Ministry of Transportation will ensure that the traffic rules and principles are followed.
He said: “I want to reiterate and to assure Lagosians that both Lagos State Government and the Federal Ministry of works will get to work very quickly and we’ll see how quickly we can remedy the current.
“These are bridges that are not also made for us to have dead weight on them and what do I mean by deadweight all the heavy heavy trucks and containers that we packed on them. They are not they’re not designed for such usage.
“And so what we will do is we will go back, you know, with our Ministry of Transportation, and we will do a full traffic impact assessment. And we will see where we can advise our commuters, you know, to begin to move their traffic and vehicular movement just so that we can provide, you know, adequate alternatives.”
According to the Governor, although the bridge is a federal government asset saying that in the last months, there had been several road maintenance and repair works carried out by the government on other bridges in the state.
Speaking earlier, Kuti stated that maintenance of bridge was a continuous thing to do and added that the government was committed to carry out rehabilitation works on worn-out bearings noticed between Alaka and Costain portion inwards Apongbon of Eko Bridge.
He stated that the bridge, constructed in the 70s, is no longer safe for commuters and assured that a detailed investigation would be carried out in that regards.
“This is Eko Bridge. And we just discovered that the bearings are gone, especially on this particular pair. So the bearings are broken, and we are having problem with the bridge deck. As a matter of fact, the bridge is no longer safe for public use.
“And so pending further detailed investigation. You know, we need to carry out detailed investigation. You know, an assessment of this particular bearing and all that, then we will be able to now give you further information on what we can do, but for now the bridge is not safe for public use. So it has to be it was shut down last night to allow for detailed investigation before we can allow members of the public to make use of it,” he said.
