Against the cry by a section of Nigerians that the second Niger Bridge would be abandoned by the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration, Federal Controller of Works in Anambra, Innocent Alumonah, said out of a total of N14.466billion for the early work, N2.166billion has been paid to Julius Berger, the contractor handling the construction project.
While dismissing fears of Nigerians, Alumonah said the project work had reached 44.6percent completion, noting that the work was splitted into phases running from phase 1 to phase 4 which is the major part of the bridge construction.
According to him, President Buhari is committed to the project as it is not a political issue as being perceived by many across the country, especially people in the South South and South East.
Rather than seeing it as a bridge for the eastern and southern states, Alumonah said: “The bridge is a link road to all parts of the country not just the South east. It is not a bridge only for the southern part of the country. It is for all Nigerians.”
He said the pressure on the first Niger bridge which was built in 1965 moved the federal government to engage in building the second Niger Bridge so as to ease the pressure and speed of movement on the highway.
He explained that the issue of compensation for people to be affected has been handled by the federal government.
He said: “The contract was split into phases. Phases 1 to phase 3 have been successfully accomplished and we are now on early works in phase 4. Part of this early works phase 4 forms part of the main contract.
“So far, the 1.2 kilometer sand filling of the road at the Asaba end has reached the height of 2.2 meters out of the expected five meters.
“At the Onitsha end, we have done a lot of sand filling of embankments to a reasonable stage. We have done a lot of culverts as well.
“In all, we have achieved around 44.6 per cent of phase of early work stage 4.”
He said the contract for the early work stage four was awarded in October 2016 while work commenced in November 2017.
