Lagosians excited by Fourth Mainland Bridge

WITH a population of about 25 million, an economy reputed to be Africa’s fifth largest and a Gross Domestic Product (GDP), averaging $133 billion (about N27 trillion), Lagos State can be called Africa’s megacity.

A graphic design of the Fourth Mainland Bridge

But, unlike other megacities, Lagos cannot boast of modern infrastructure. Rather, it parades old infrastructure that are inadequate for its growing population.

One area where the inadequacy is most evident is in the transportation sector, where traffic congestion has become the new definition of modern Lagos.

This problem, according to experts, may get worse if the government does not address the infrastructure deficit, by not only expanding the old roads across the state, but also building new ones.

While successive administrations in the last 16 years have addressed the first leg by expanding the capacity of most high density roads and have been attempting to fix most of the inner ones, the Akinwunmi Ambode administration last May took a bold step by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with a consortium of firms and finance houses for delivering the Fourth Mainland Bridge, a project which has almost become a mirage, having been in abeyance over the last 14 years.

When the Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu administration thought of the fourth bridge, the needed indices were non-existent. With the state’s population less than 10 million, and traffic recording low congestion compared to its present state, many would have thought the dream was another white elephant that would be dead on arrival.

With each passing year, however, the need for the bridge becomes more urgent as the vehicle density in the state grows, forcing the Babatunde Fashola government to attempt its hands on it.

Though the government stopped when faced with some structures (put at 3,000), that have abridged the bridge’s right of way since its conception, it, however, ensured that the preliminary legwork for a new engineering design for the bridge that would take a new alignment began.

With the early take-off of the project in the Ambode administration, there is no doubt that the state is closer to achieving its dream. Not only would the government deliver the project, it is almost certain that it would come with less pain.

About 2,200 houses are saved in the new alignment design, meaning a huge reduction not only in compensation, but also the cost of litigation or orders that might emanate from courts by aggrieved litigants over the laudable project.