FG to shut Third Mainland Bridge from Jan. 2024 for repairs

Federal Government has disclosed of plans to shut the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos from January, next year for repairs.

The development follows on the heels of another closure planned for the facility, this weekend, for 24 hours.

It would recalled that the Federal Controller of Works in Lagos State, Mrs. Olukorede Kesha, in a statement, Thursday, announced the planned closure of the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos starting from midnight of Saturday, October 21 to midnight of Sunday, October 22 to carry out repairs .

The Controller of Works in Lagos further disclosed that Federal Government was ready to begin comprehensive rehabilitation works on the bridge, starting with repairs of the critical portions.

“However, in order to alleviate the pains currently being experienced on the bridge, the Ministry would be carrying out palliative works on the most critically failed sections along the Adeniji bound carriageway on Sunday, Oct. 22 preparatory to the comprehensive repair works,” she said.

She advised motorists to cooperate with the traffic management officials by obeying and observing all diversions as directed for seamless movement.

“However, motorists are encouraged to use alternative routes where possible during the period of the palliative works as the Adeniji bound of the bridge will be closed to traffic from Saturday, Oct. 21 to Sunday, 22nd 12.00 midnight,” she said, in the statement, Thursday.

Meanwhile, speaking while featuring as guest on Channels Television programme, Friday, Mrs. Olukorede Kesha has further disclosed that the federal Government plans to shut down the bridge starting from late January, next year for a more expansive repair work.

“So we were saying let us do a complete overhaul of the asphalt overlay. Some of them have been long overdue because we haven’t done that in the last 30 years. It is just the failures that have shown up that we have been addressing

 “The Federal government has awarded that contract already, and preparatory works are pending when the contractor moves to the site because there are some elements of repairs that need to be imported.

“Pending that we just want to do palliative work to provide relief for motorists.

 “It is going to take the contractor 3 months to import those elements needed for the repair.

“One bound will be for 3 months then we will divert to the other bound once we are done with this bound we will bring back traffic to this lane,” she said.

On the planned closure, from Saturday night, Kesha said: “What we have been doing according to the funds available, You know you can’t do beyond the funds available to you.

“Nigeria is a large state, and the funds available to the Federal Ministry of Works in its entirety will have to be shared by the 37 states.

“So what comes to us Lagos will have to be shared amongst all the Federal roads in Lagos.

“What we have been doing is sectional repairs, we look at areas that have failed and promptly attend to those areas and when you attend to this area this year, you discover another area is going to come up next year.

“But this new administration has said no to sectional repairs because if we do that we are going to have what we have been doing before and next year another area will show up as a failure.”