By Lydia Chigozie-Ngwakwe

The Federal Government on Sunday inaugurated the N40 billion Close Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) Centre of the Third Mainland Bridge in Lagos State.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CCTV centre was built by the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC).

Inaugurating the centre, the Minister of Works, Sen. Dave Umahi, said that the current administration met a ‘very terrible Third Mainland Bridge’.

‎”When we came on board in 2023, we met a very terrible Third Mainland Bridge, Carter Bridge and Iddo Bridge both on the pavement, surface, infrastructure above the water and even infrastructure below the water.

‎”The president, therefore, directed total re-evaluation and rehabilitation of the surfaces of the Third mainland Bridge and changing the expansion joints.

‎”Lagosians were very happy with the President for that beautiful work, and that work completed and commissioned is still succeeding because of the quality,” he said.

‎He thanked the CCECC for a job well done.

He said the ministry would be handing over a boat and two Hilux vans, which were part of the contract, to the police for monitoring of the bridge.

“If they need to incorporate other security agencies, they can do that, but the idea of this project is that we have a lay-by on the bridge, so we view everything going on on this bridge.”

Umahi expressed worry at speeding by motorists on the bridge, urging adherence to traffic rules and regulations.

Earlier, the Federal Controller of Works in Lagos, Mr Olufemi Dare, said that the centre was the first of its kind in Nigeria.

‎” I doubt if there is any bridge in Nigeria that has what we have deployed here today, where you have CCTV to monitor both the underwater and even the bridge itself.

” We have a boat that has been bought for surveillance of the bridge. There are two Hilux vans, too.

” We have 240 solar panels in this environment, and that is not enough. The whole place is fully air-conditioned. We have 10 inverters inside the building.

‎”We have the powering units. We have a transformer, a 300KVA transformer. We have a standby generating plant and monitoring screens,” he said.

He expressed gratitude to President Bola Tinubu for the provision and thanked Umahi for ensuring that due process was followed in establishing the centre.

‎”We have about 1268 solar street lights that are part of this contract,” he said.

He added that a bore was part of the project.

Dare said that the project’s contract sum was 40.17 billion.

He said that the Federal Government had paid N36 billion to the contractor handling the project.

“This is the first level commissioning. We are still going to come back here to do even for the extension of the bridge which is about to be completed.

‎”We pray that very sooner than later, we will come back to do a full-blown commissioning.” (NAN)

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