FG Orders Underwater Inspection Of Third Mainland Bridge

The Federal Government on
Wednesday approved a N290.745
million contract for a comprehensive
underwater inspection of the state of
Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos. Disclosing this to journalists after the
weekly meeting of the Federal
Executive Council presided over by
President Goodluck Jonathan, Minister
of Information, Labaran Maku, noted
that the bridge, a vital artery on the federal highways network connecting
Lagos mainland to the island required
replacement of damaged expansion
joints and bearings as indicated by
investigations conducted in 2008. The investigations were conducted
following reports of oscillation and
excessive vibrations of the bridge
under traffic load. “The reports indicated that the bridge
was structurally sound but required the
replacement of damaged expansion
joints and bearings,” Maku said. He added that the contract will involve
comprehensive underwater inspection,
assessment of pilings, river bed
bathymetric survey, profiling and echo
metric test on the Bridge. This, he
added will save the bridge from extensive deteriorating condition. The approval of the contract followed a
memo presented to Mike
Onolememen, the Minister of Works on
the issue. The contract was awarded to Messrs
ICECON (Nig.) Ltd and is expected to be
completed in two months. It will be recalled that the Federal
Government had in 2012 awarded
N1billion for the replacement of eight
expansion joints on the 11.8
kilometres third mainland bridge built in
1990. The contract, executed by Messrs
Borini Prono and Company Ltd,
commenced on July 7, 2012, and was
completed October 30. The bridge was
partially closed during the execution of
the contract. But Senator Gbenga Ashafa,
representing Lagos in the upper
chamber of the National Assembly had
in a motion on the floor of the Senate in
February this year raised alarm that the
Bridge was in dire need of rehabilitation as repairs executed by the Ministry of
Works did not meet the required
standard. He warned that if the bridge is not
immediately worked on, it may
collapse. “Repair works embarked upon during
the last quarter of 2012 by the Ministry
of Works, were just mere window
dressing on the expansion joints. A
recent report by some experts in
concrete structural engineering found out that the last repairs that were done
at the end of October did not meet the
entire requirement. The experts went
back after those remedial actions were
taken and came back with the report
that something has to be done urgently,” Ashafa later told journalists. Also speaking in favour of a quick
action, Senate President David Mark,
warned during the debate on the
motion that the Lagos Third Mainland
Bridge would be a major national
disaster if allowed to collapse. “The bridge is an important edifice and
its collapse will be a major catastrophe,
as many lives may be lost,” said Senator
Mark. The Senate subsequently mandated its
Committee on Works to investigate the
state of the bridge. But the Federal Ministry of Works had
insisted that the Bridge was in a perfect
shape following the repairs carried out
in 2012. Onolememen told journalists that
speculations on the state of the bridge
by the lawmakers were based on mere
perception, as there was no civil
engineering test to justify the
statement.