The Second Niger Bridge will be fully ready for use by the first quarter of 2024, Seyi Martins, the acting Federal Controller of Works in Anambra State, has confirmed.
However, Martins said the bridge would be officially inaugurated by December 2022.
He disclosed this over the weekend while receiving members of the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria, COREN, at the bridge site.
The Controller said that the project’s first phase had been substantially completed, adding that what is left is the final asphalt surfacing on the Asaba-bound carriageway lane with that of the Onitsha-bound carriageway entirely laid.
“The bridge project is 95 per cent complete, and it is expected to be delivered by the end of December 2022, but there is a second phase, which is a 3.3-kilometre road approach on the Delta side and a 7-kilometre approach road on the Anambra side that is yet to commence.
“The second phase of the project has yet to commence, but the government has deemed it fit that upon completion of the first phase, it will be open to traffic”, he said.
He added that the bridge would be accessed from the interchange at Oba on the Onitsha-Owerri road, as a road was being constructed to connect traffic on the Asaba-Benin Expressway to it, pending the completion of the second phase.
