The federal government has expressed concerns over the destruction of bridges by heavy duty trucks along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and ordered urgent works and repairs on several bridges along the axis.
The minister of Works, David Umahi, disclosed this during a joint inspection tour with directors of highway design and bridges, controllers from Lagos and Ogun states, engineers from the Federal Ministry of Works, and officials from the Lagos Ministry of Works.
He also examined five critical bridges including Lotto, Ogere, Sapade and Alapako.
The inspection uncovered severe structural threats, including rusted reinforcement rods and damages caused by repeated collisions from heavy-duty trucks.
The existing headroom on many of the bridges were found to be inadequate for modern transportation demands.
Among the five inspected bridges, the Alapako Bridge was deemed the most critical and the minister ordered its immediate closure due to the high risk it poses to motorists.
“We inspected the first five bridges and discovered we are having a problem. As much as the headroom in bridge design is 5.6 meters, we have some bridges up to 6.2 meters and some not up to that. But we have some of the bridges being hit by vehicles, which is very dangerous.
“The way the bridges are now is very dangerous. The Alapako Bridge should be closed immediately. Although these bridges didn’t have any budgetary allocations, they are jobs that need serious emergency work. The need to reconstruct them is very high,” he said.
Umahi gave a directive for all future bridge designs to meet a minimum headroom clearance of 6.5 meters to accommodate the increasing volume and size of vehicles on Nigerian highways.
The minister ordered a halt to construction work on the 12km Sagamu-Iperu Road, located near the Sagamu Interchange on the same expressway as he expressed deep dissatisfaction with the quality and pace of work by the contractor handling the project.