Edo Assembly Minority Leader raises alarm over dilapidated Ovia River Bridge

By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY – The Minority Leader of the Edo State House of Assembly, Hon. Charity Aiguobarueghian, on Thursday raised an alarm about the dilapidated bridge in Ovia River along the Benin-Shagamu-Lagos Expressway, saying it is causing multiple accidents that claim lives.

Speaking to Vanguard Newspaper after visiting the bridge, which falls within the Constituency he represents in the state House of Assembly, he called on the federal government not to abandon the road because of the ongoing construction of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road, adding that a fraction of that amount would be enough to fix the bridge.

While commending the Coastal Road by President Bola Tinubu, Aiguobarueghian said “Only yesterday, I was told that an accident happened and all the occupants of the vehicle died, it is heart wrenching, sometimes people spend spend hours just to cross this small bridge and the reason is not far-fetched, all of the things that have to do with road is absent here, there is no asphalt, there is no reinforcement, the road and the bridges were done in the early 1970s and today, it is more than fifty years old”

He said “It is unfortunate that this bridge is not maintained, when we walked through it, it was shaking, all the irons are pulling off, they are all on the surface without covering, there is no possibility of the vehicles passing through without effect even at five kilometres per hours, the vehicles are unable to move, the potholes are so much that an unwary driver running into it at speed would swerve from the road.

“We are calling on the government, the federal government particularly to look into revamping of this bridge. We are calling on the president who has shown resolve in bringing back infrastructural development in Nigeria. He has done it in other places, the reason this has not been done I don’t know, but I want to assume that it is as a result of lack of information so we are bringing this to the notice of the federal government. I want to thank him for the very audacious Lagos – Calabar Coastal road he has embarked on, it is very audacious because it is going to be a revolution but as at today before that one is done, this is the only road that leads to West to the eastern part, today we need to be able to give life to what we have before which is this one before the new one so we want the old one to be functional and it will bring a new lease of life to us, deaths on Ovia river bridge is avoidable”

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