Why delivery of Second Niger Bridge, Lagos/Ibadan Expressway may delay

• Published date: 24 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

The fate of Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and the Second Niger Bridge earlier slated for completion in the lifespan of this Administration hangs in the balance. The Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, stated a few days ago that paucity of funds will slow down the completion of the projects. This is aside the increasing price of construction materials.

Explaining this further, the Minister said: 'Let me first appreciate commuters who use that road, a major transport artery in Nigeria for their understanding. This road could have been built between 1999 and 2015 but it wasn't. This road is in better shape than we inherited and it is now at the last mile of completion.

'You remember at a point this road was removed from the budget and I was engaging the National Assembly until the president unveiled the presidential infrastructure development fund which was essentially from investments from the Nigerian LNG and funds recovered from outside Nigeria.'

The Nation learnt that the Debt Management Office (DMO) raised N162.557 billion from investors in June 2020 and the huge cash was dedicated to the financing of road projects in the Revised 2020 Appropriation Act.

The Minister of Finance and Budget Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, said the deployment of Sukuk funds coupled with other capital releases and various interventions by the government, the economy would soon be on the path to economic development.

Fashola, at the presentation, said the people who put money in the Sukuk were fund and the owners of the funds, adding that it was a matter of trust which they had for the administration that made them release their hard-earned money.

'I assure you that we value that trust from the evidence of what has happened in Sukuk One, and Sukuk Two, your trust is not misplaced and it will not be misplaced in the 44 road projects that will benefit from this Sukuk.

'For the benefit of the members of the public, the 44 roads that will benefit from this Sukuk have every geo-political zone taken care of.

'For the North-Central eight roads, Northeast eight roads, Northwest seven roads, Southeast five roads, Southsouth 10 roads, and Southwest six roads,'' Fashola said.

'The first sovereign Sukuk for N100billion was issued in September 2017 and was followed by another in December 2018, also for N100billion.

'With the issuance of the Third Sukuk, the Federal Government has raised a total of N362.577billion all of which is for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of road projects across...