The Federal Government says the sit at home order given by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB has delayed the completion of the Second Niger Bridge project.
The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola who stated this on Wednesday morning said works planned on Mondays could not be carried out due to the disruption caused by the order.
”These dates keep shifting and people must remember that on the eastern side, our contractors have not been able to work on Mondays for almost two years and that has affected the completion date”.
Fashola noted that challenges like relocating transmission lines connecting the East to the West across the Niger River, contributed to days lost and added to the bottlenecks that affected the early completion of the bridge within the time earlier stipulated.
On the completion of the last 4km stretch of the road in four months, the Minister said the construction is taking place in a marshland and as such, there is great need for dredging and sand filling, as such the process cannot be rushed.
Fashola attributed the progress on the road so far to the use of Prefabricated Vertical Drains which accelerate settlement and drainage and as such, workers can start building quicker than would ordinarily have been expected.
The minister however promised that the new target date to deliver a perfectly completed Second-Niger Bridge will be between April and May 2023.