The Second Niger Bridge, which was formally inaugurated yesterday and handed over to the states of Delta and Anambra, has been named after President Muhammadu Buhari.
The 1.6km bridge cost N206,151,693,014 billion to build and was granted in 2018 after its groundbreaking ceremony on March 10, 2014.
Buhari Sallau, the president’s personal assistant on media, announced on Facebook that “following consultations, the governors of the South East have agreed that the second Niger Bridge shall be named the Muhammadu Buhari Second Niger Bridge.”
Buhari virtually commissioned the bridge alongside six other projects from the council chambers in Aso Rock, Abuja.
Other projects commisioned are the Lokoja-Oweto Bridge in Nasarawa/Benue states; Ikom Bridge in Cross River State; Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Road; and Federal Secretariats in Gusau, Zamfara, Awka Anambra and Yenogoa, Bayelsa States.
At the physical ceremony which held at the Bridge Head by Toll Plaza Area at the Asaba end of the bridge in Delta State, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, unveiled the plague and cut the ceremonial tape on behalf of the president.
Present at the ceremony were Governors Charles Soludo and Hope Uzodinma of Anambra and Imo states respectively. Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State was represented by his Chief of Staff, Festus Agas; President General of Ohaneze Ndigbo, Emmanuel Iwuanyanwu; Chairman of the Board of Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Lauretta Onochie, were among the dignitaries present at the event.
Speaking virtually, Buhari said the bridge, which had been long in the making, and certainly now a reality, was a bridge of choice across the River Niger to bring relief to those crossing from the South-East to the South-West.
He said infrastructure development was made a deliberate key focal point of his administration to create wealth and make poverty alleviation easier. He said the anti-corruption approach of his government didnt end in courts, but that stolen and recovered assets were utilised for the common good.
The President said he shared the concerns of Nigerians about the debt profile of the country, noting however that the debts were tied to projects that have been executed in very transparent circumstances.
“As we look at the debt profile, I urge us to also look at the assets and investment profiles, some of which were paid for by debt and some by investment income. In eight years, I am proud to say that we have doubled Nigeria’s stock of infrastructure to GDP from about 20 per cent to over 40 per cent and that is no small undertaking. The projects that we hand over today apart from others such as rail, sea and airports, gas pipeline projects that have been previously completed, symbolise our country’s sharp focus on delivering prosperity,” he said.
Governors of Anambra and Imo States, Chukwuma Soludo and Hope Uzodimma commended the President for constructing the bridge, saying it would open up the South East for more businesses and economic development.
The governors said they were happy that despite several years of “promise and fail” by previous administrations, the Buhari-led government was able to bring the Second Niger bridge project to reality.
Soludo described the project as a fundamental change that will catalyze new waves of prosperity and economic growth in the South-East.
He said he was personally overjoyed because people of the South East have long advocated for infrastructural development.
He enumerated other four major projects desired in the region to include the dredging of three channels that would give the South East access to the Atlantic, the construction of the Anambra-Lokoja Road, the gas pipeline, and the railway line.
Uzodinma said despite the South East not voting for him, Buhari fulfilled the promise he made to the zone.
“He asked for our votes, we did not give him. He made a promise and now he has fulfilled the promise even though we didn’t vote for him,” he said.
In his remarks, Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, explained the significance of the projects, adding that the construction of the infrastructure generated economic activities around them, providing means of livelihood for hundreds of thousands who worked there.
“Travel time is reduced by more than 50 per cent in many of the places we surveyed; property values of landowners have appreciated by up to 30 per cent in the surveys conducted on land values where we have delivered infrastructure,” he said.
Ngige also commissioned the newly built Ebele Ofunneamaka Okeke Federal Secretariat Complex in Awka, Anambra State, on behalf of President Buhari.
In his speech, Ngige commended Buhari, for “giving the people of the South East a sense of belonging by bringing infrastructural development to the region.”
He advised the Federal Government workers who would be making use of the secretariat to take proper care of it as the government had done its part by building it for their use.
The contractor who handled the project, Chief Cosmas Agagbo, commended the president and the Federal Government for believing in him by giving him the project to handle.