"Third Mainland Bridge is SAFE" - Works Ministry

Minister of Works, Mike Onolememen, Monday affirmed that the Third Mainland Bridge was safe and not under threat. This is coming against speculations recently that the bridge was under threat and could crave in soon.

Onolememen, who was invited by the Senate Committee on Works over the alleged imminent collapse of the Third Mainland Bridge Monday, also gave reasons for turning down the N33 billion proposal for carrying out underwater inspection of the bridge.

He said the proposal was turned down because the contracting firm only reached for solutions and recommendations without technical inspection.

Senator Gbenga Ashafa, (Lagos East) had moved a motion two weeks ago on the alarming condition of the Third Main Bridge. In his debate, he called for urgent repair of the bridge to avoid imminent collapse. Consequently, the issue was referred to Senate Committee on Works to investigate the claims.

Onolememen stressed that if the actual job was carried out, it would not cost more than N5 billion, adding: “What happened is that one of the sea divers we engaged actually went beyond his brief. In fact, they did not only submit the underwater photography, they just arrived at a solution and recommended a particular technology and said that it was going to cost the ministry N33 billion to do it and of course, with an engineering mind like mine, I said no, this is not based on any evidence. So, it is better we do pile by pile investigation and at the end of the day, we know exactly what maintenance work we need to do on the Third Mainland Bridge before we get to the costing.

“Of course, that memo came to me and I refused to approve it. After all, the most critical sections of the bridge - the first two sections, where we need to carry out immediate repair from information available to me by people who did the test, we will not need more than N5 billon to carry out these repairs. So, as a minister, I would be very suspicious of that kind of documentation.”

On the safety of the Third Mainland Bridge, the minister informed that the report of inspections on various engineering analytical and laboratory tests of samples of materials taken for the piles of the bridge by experts showed that the bridge was not in any way under threat of imminent collapse as earlier speculated.

“From the report before me, the report from experts in the field that have carried out various engineering, analytical and laboratory tests of samples of materials proved that the bridge is safe.

“I am saying that the Third Mainland Bridge is safe. However, we need to start progressive maintenance of the bridge because the first section of the bridge was built about 35 years ago and that is consistent with the recommendations of the team of experts that did this investigation and the ministry has set in motion the procedure to actualise that.

“There is no better way to dramatise the safety of the bridge than organising a press briefing on it”, he said.