Why 4th mainland bridge had to be redesigned

folarin okunola

May 8, 2015 11:29 AM

The redesign of the 23km project became imperative because the original design posed some major challenges for the government.

Lagos state governor Babatunde Raji Fashola

The Lagos State government has explained why it has altered the design of the much awaited fourth mainland bridge along the Lekki Peninsula.

The redesign of the 23km project became imperative because the original design posed some major challenges for the government. The bridge itself is about 4km.

Obafemi Hamzat, the state commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, explained that such challenges involved massive destruction of buildings in the path of the bridge as well as huge compensation payments to owners of the houses that will be affected by the demolition.

The commissioner who made this statement at the briefing of the state government, explained that about 69 structures have been built on the path meant for the construction of the bridge. He further explained that this forced the government to consider redesigning the bridge so as to minimalize massive demolitions and payment of huge compensations.

Hamzat said the government had already done the survey to establish the new route for the bridge and that various options were being looked at. “Unfortunately, after the survey and enumeration had been done, a lot of people have built unbelievable number of buildings. I think people were speculative in anticipation of the bridge. I think the demolition we have to do is now about 69 buildings, so we have to rethink, the amount of compensation will run into billions of naira if we have to do that” he said.

According to the commissioner, the new alignment will take into consideration the Lekki Free Zone and other multinational companies venturing into the axis.

“You can call it Fourth Mainland Bridge or whatever, but the idea is that if it was here before, because demolition of these buildings will be much, and because some of them don’t have building plans, but they are massive buildings and it would be really bad to demolish them. So, really we don’t intend to carry out demolitions. The idea is to move the alignment now so that people don’t start going there to build again”, he explained.

folarin okunola