Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has assured that the Second Niger Bridge project would be completed by the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari.
According to the Vice President, the bridge was not only important for the economy of the South East, but Nigeria’s economy in general.
A statement issued by Osinbajo’s spokesman, Laolu Akande, in Abuja on Saturday, said the vice president gave the assurance while answering questions from newsmen after inspecting the progress of work at the Asaba end of the Second Niger Bridge project on Friday.
“The Second Niger Bridge is so important for the economy of the South East and for the Nigerian economy, and of course, it is not just the bridge, there are the access roads, which are also very important.
“It is obvious so much progress has been made here; it is an important project that the President is committed to completing.
“In the past 18 months or so, a lot work has been done and I came to see for myself. As you can see, the foundation goes all the way down, and this is just the Asaba end of the bridge. There is also the Anambra end of the bridge, so it is a lot of work.
“There are a huge number of people who are also benefiting in various ways as the project progresses.”
The statement quoted Osinbajo as saying the Buhari administration’s commitment to ensuring completion of some strategic infrastructure projects such as the Second Niger Bridge that would improve the nation’s economy, necessitated the creation of the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund, PIDF.
He said lack of funds was one of the reasons why many projects have remained uncompleted, hence PIDF.
The PIDF is an initiative of Buhari administration which is invested solely in critical road and power projects across the country.
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Some of the projects currently being executed under the PIDF besides the Second Niger Bridge included the Kano-Abuja expressway, the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and the Mambila hydro project, among others.
The statement also disclosed that the Vice President paid a courtesy call on the Obi of Onitsha, Igwe Alfred Achebe, at his palace in Onitsha before embarking on the tour of the Second Niger Bridge project.
At the Obi’s Palace, he assured of the Federal Government’s commitment to being fair and just in the execution of projects across the country pointing out that there were other projects being implemented by the Federal Government in Anambra State in partnership with the state government.
“Anambra State was the very first state to accept what we call the HomeGrown School Feeding Programme, which is a Federal Government programme. Anambra State was the very first state to accept and implement it the way we wanted it to be implemented,” he said.
While in Anambra State, Osinbajo also visited the Eke-Awka market in Awka, and the Ochanja market in Onitsha, to monitor ongoing disbursement of the TraderMoni to over three thousand petty traders at the markets.
So far, over 30,000 persons have been enumerated in Anambra State while about 27,000 loans have been disbursed and over 18,000 cashed out.
