There are indications that motorists may not have to endure a long time and difficult driving experience for long on Marine Bridge in Apapa, Lagos as the federal government says repair work on the bridge has reached 66 percent completion.
This sounds interesting given that the contractor has just worked for six days after the Apapa outbound section of the bridge was closed to traffic to enable him to start work on Monday, January 17, 2022.
The Lagos state government in a statement on Sunday, January 16, announced the closure of the bridge to traffic, disclosing that the repair work would be done in two phases.
Frederic Oladeinde, the state’s commissioner for transportation, who signed the statement, explained that phase one, which involves repair of the Apapa outbound section, would take between January 17 and March 9, 2022, while the second phase involving Apapa inbound section would take between March 10 and April 2, 2022.
The expectation is high therefore that the repair work would be done much earlier than scheduled, given the speed at which the contractor is moving. 66 percent completion in one week for a job that is expected to take 62 days, means there is hope for early completion, all things being equal.
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Olukayode Popoola, Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, who on Saturday, January 22, disclosed the extent of work done and the scope of work to be carried out on the bridge, reassured that the repair work would be completed in April 2022.
The controller said that the repair work would involve the replacement of 40 bearings and six expansion joints, recalling that 24 expansion joints and 120 bearings had been replaced in the previous work on the bridge.
“The partial closure of the bridge on Monday was to allow the contractor to rehabilitate the damaged section, which will involve the replacement of 40 bearings and six expansion joints,” he said, urging motorists to obey traffic regulations around the construction zone where traffic was partially diverted to avert gridlock.
The controller recalled further that rehabilitation work on Marine Bridge started in September 2021 with the diversion of traffic for 12 weeks to allow the federal government to commence emergency repair work on different sections of the bridge. He noted that what was being done now on the bridge was a carry-over work from last year.
