Fashola Extends Dates For Completion Of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Others

The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has said The Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, the Second Niger Bridge, and the Abuja-Kaduna Expressway will now be completed in the first quarter of 2022.

The Lagos-Ibadan road, which was awarded to Julius Berger Nigeria and Reynolds Construction Company Limited (RCC), at a cost of 167 billion naira, was earlier scheduled to be finished in 2021.

Fashola, said this in a live television programme monitored by our correspondent in Abuja on Thursday night.
He revealed that the delay was due to the coronavirus pandemic.

He said, “The Second Niger Bridge, Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, Abuja-Kaduna-Kano roads are part of the projects under the Federal Government’s essential infrastructure development fund and their expected delivery dates are in quarter one of 2022.”

The minister argued that real construction work only commenced on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway when the current government came to power.

Fashola said, “Since 2007, no measure of reasonable construction work took place on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, except palliatives. It was when this government came that construction really started.

“Those who don’t use the road will not appreciate what is going on there, but those who use the road on a daily basis for their survival will tell you that the bottlenecks and traffic time on that road had significantly reduced.”

He further explained, “As I speak to you now, we have lost essentially the prime of our working period which is the dry season in the Covid period,” he said.

“We have to regain and recover all of that.

“We have also lost some of our expected revenue plans.

“At the time Covid hit Nigeria, we were doing 2.59 percent growth rate. Now we are heading for a recession globally and Nigeria will not be insulated from that.

“We are working on plans to bring the economy back on track.”

For the Second Niger Bridge, he said all the foundation works had been completed, adding that the project was on course to meet the expected delivery date.