{"id":19216,"date":"2020-06-05T08:29:59","date_gmt":"2020-06-05T08:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216"},"modified":"2020-06-05T08:30:10","modified_gmt":"2020-06-05T08:30:10","slug":"nigerian-govt-announces-new-date-for-completion-of-lagos-ibadan-expressway-second-niger-bridge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216","title":{"rendered":"Nigerian govt announces new date for completion of Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Second Niger Bridge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Kainji,<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nigerian Government on Thursday announced a new date for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway<\/a> and Second Niger Bridge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola, who revealed the new date<\/p>\n\n\n\n

when he appeared on Channels Television\u2019s Politics Today, said the projects would now be completed in the first quarter of 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The projects were initially fixed to be completed in 2021, but Fashola said the initial date was no longer possible, blaming the delay on the coronavirus pandemic, which he said, slowed construction activities and affected government revenues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The two projects are part of the projects funded under the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another project under the fund is the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano highway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The three of them, Fashola said were no longer going to be completed in 2021 but in 2022.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said, \u201cAs I speak to you now, we have lost essentially the prime of our working period which is the dry season in the COVID period. We have to regain and recover all of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have also lost some of our expected revenue plans. At the time COVID hit Nigeria, we were doing 2.59 per cent growth rate. Now we are heading for a recession globally and Nigeria will not be insulated from that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are working on plans to bring the economy back on track.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minister noted that works on the projects were suspended during the coronavirus lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said in the first week of easing of the lockdown that 11 contractors, executing 53 projects in 26 states were \u201cremobilised back to site.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe had to work with the governors to allow men and materials to move. We also had to develop new safety guidelines for the construction.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On what President Muhammadu Buhari<\/a> has done in the last five years to improve road infrastructure in the country, Fashola said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGiven the circumstances and the results, we have done a lot much more with less resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He cited refunds \u2013 near N700 billion \u2013 made by the Buhari\u2019s administration to states for federal road projects worked on since 1999.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fashola said, \u201cThese are debts that the previous government handed over at the time oil was selling at over $100 per barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThose roads were neglected then. These governments have inherited them at the time when revenues have dropped significantly, sometimes to as low as $20 per barrel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWith much less resources, we have committed to more radical infrastructure development across Nigeria. So as I speak to you now, we are executing 600 road projects across all the states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are in universities repairing internal roads that have been left behind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Abuja-Kaduna highway is under construction, so is the Bodo-Bonny bridge. Second Niger-Bridge and the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat is the impact? Although we haven\u2019t finished, any road user today will tell you that their journey times on the major highways have been improved, compared to when we resumed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nigerian Government on Thursday announced a new date for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and Second Niger Bridge. The Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola, who revealed the new date when he appeared on Channels Television\u2019s Politics Today, said the projects would now be completed in the first quarter of 2022. The projects were initially fixed to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nNigerian govt announces new date for completion of Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Second Niger Bridge » WatchDog Plus Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Odofin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Construction and Works\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=18\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"Nigerian govt announces new date for completion of Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Second Niger Bridge\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Nigerian govt announces new date for completion of Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Second Niger Bridge » WatchDog Plus Media","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216","author":"Odofin","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?p=19216#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Construction and Works","item":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=18"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"Nigerian govt announces new date for completion of Lagos-Ibadan expressway, Second Niger Bridge"}]}]}},"rttpg_featured_image_url":null,"rttpg_author":{"display_name":"Odofin","author_link":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?author=2"},"rttpg_comment":0,"rttpg_category":"<a href=\"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/?cat=18\" rel=\"category\">Construction and Works<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"Nigerian Government on Thursday announced a new date for the completion of the Lagos-Ibadan expressway and Second Niger Bridge. The Minister of Works, Babatunde Fashola, who revealed the new date when he appeared on Channels Television\u2019s Politics Today, said the projects would now be completed in the first quarter of 2022. The projects were initially fixed to…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19216"}],"version-history":[{"count":-4,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchdogplusmedia.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}