FG to prioritise maintenance of all federal roads, Minister assures

The federal government of Nigeria has assured that it will prioritize maintenance of all federal roads in the country, explaining that every road in this country has become a priority and it will face all the challenges within the limit of scarce resources.

Dave Umahi, Minister for Works, gave this assurance during his inspection tour of on-going rehabilitation work on federal roads in Lagos.

The minister disclosed that the federal government would carry out resurfacing of the Third Mainland Bridge, just as it would pay more attention to concrete reinforcement of roads in the country.

The minister inspected the three bridges that link the Mainland and Island in Lagos and disclosed that the government was more concerned about happenings underneath the bridges.

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According to him, the ministry has been liaising with the contractor handling the project and would be mobilised as soon as the ministry received the necessary details of the on-going investigation.

Umahi also inspected the 30.5km Ikorodu-Sagamu Road which is about 85 percent completed. However, he said that Ikorodu axis of the road would be redesigned.

He, however, commended the contractor handling the project for maintaining a good standard of work and for keeping to the contractual agreement with the government.

As for Ikorodu-Itoikin Road, the minister urged the Lagos State government to take responsibility of maintaining the road for now while the federal government concerned itself with rehabilitating and dualising the 34km single-lane road.

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“I can assure that within the next 60 days, this contract is going to start with concrete pavement,” he said.

Also in response to the deplorable nature of all federal roads in Edo State, the minister said the ministry was willing to speedup approval for the state government to carry out rehabilitation of the bad potions.

“If the governor approaches the minister of works and seeks permission even if he sends me requests by WhatsApp or whatever, I will give him approval within two hours so that he can start. I am going to visit Edo State and I will look at those roads,” he assured.