FG Releases N30Bn for 2nd Niger Bridge

The federal government, yesterday, said it has earmarked a total of N30 billion for the construction of the second Niger Bridge, 21 years after it was designed.

The current River Niger Bridge which was built in 1965 is at the brink of caving in and has become a nightmare to commuters mainly due to poor maintenance, overuse, frequent subjection to overbearing deadweight and cannibalization.

Mike Onolememen, minister of Works said that  "N30 billion is already there for the construction of the second Niger Bridge, which he said, is “undergoing geo-technical survey.”

The amount, he said was the federal government’s counterpart funding of the multi-billion naira project.

It would be recalled that the federal government had in August last year dusted the idea of a second  Niger Bridge and said that it has approved a contract of N325 million to Messrs Roughton International Limited,  a  transaction advisory services firm,  to design, build, finance and operate the proposed second Niger Bridge.

Since then, it has been different comments from different government functionaries all claiming progress  on the all important bridge which links the River Niger from Asaba, Delta state to Onitsha, Anambra state

The first bridge was initiated by the British colonial government and completed just before the civil war.

Building a second bridge across the River Niger has become an over-flogged issue since 1992 when former military President, General Ibrahim Babangida challenged the Nigerian Engineers to come up with the design of the bridge.


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