11th January, 2023
By Perpetua Onuegbu
The Minister of Works and Housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, says the construction of Loko-oweto Bridge and the second Niger Bridge demonstrates the Buhari administration’s commitment to infrastructure development.
Fashola said this at the inspection of the completed Loko-oweto bridge and the linking roads section 1 and section 2 in Nassarawa State on Tuesday.
According to him, this is another intervention of the Muhammadu Buhari administration in infrastructure.
He said there was a lot of emotion and excitement about the second Niger bridge, but people forgot that it crossed the river Niger and was an East-West crossing linking the east to the west of Nigeria.
“There is also a major river in Nigeria: the River Benue and that is the North-South crossing so whilst there is a lot of publicity and excitement about the second Niger bridge.
“Understandably, perhaps not enough attention has been given to the Loko- oweto bridge, this is the bridge that crosses the River Benue.
“The point is that this has been a very defining intervention and the administration is able to show that we have built two major bridges across the two major rivers in the country connecting people, connecting the country, and facilitating trade.
“You will see that even before formally opening the bridge, there’s a lot of trucks and buses passing through, the reason they’re choosing this place is because it’s four hours saving.
“We have over 70 kilometres of road linking Benue State to Nasarawa State you have 74 kilometres of road linking Benue and Nasarawa into the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, so this bridge has been finished,” he said.
Fashola said that the bridge had been completed about two years now but had not been opened to traffic because of the connection of the linking roads which was now substantially finished.
(NAN)