318 Buildings To Be Demolished For 4th Mainland Bridge

The proposed Fourth Mainland Bridge
may not be realisable soon because;
"With the current plan, 318 buildings will
need to be demolished for the bridge to
take-off."

This was disclosed yesterday by the Lagos
State government, through the
Commissioner for Economic Planning and
Budget, Mr. Ben Akabueze and his
counterpart from the ministry of Works
and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, during an inter-ministerial press briefing
on analysis of Year 2014 budget.

Hamzat explained that it was difficult for
the state government to embark on the
previous alignment for the construction
of the bridge because of its huge
requirements and expenses, adding that
the previous alignment which is eight kilometers, will cost the state government
N320 billion.

According to him, "And to construct a
kilometer of that bridge is about N40
billion, so the issue is that we also need to
factor the cost of demolishing the 318
buildings into the project. A lot of these
buildings are beautiful houses."

He expressed concern that larger per cent
of these buildings do not have genuine
building permit.

"We need to remember that when
motorists make use of the bridge, they will
need an exit route. And this route will
require motorists to drive through a road
that will afford them to link at Ijede in
Ikorodu and another link to the Lagos- Ibadan expressway," Hamzat said.

Speaking on the appropriation for Lagos
State University, LASU, Akabueze said:
"We have N9.2 billion that would be spent
on LASU in 2014. Out of the N9.2 billion,
N2.6 is for capital expenditure while N6.6
billion is for recurrent expenditure."

The commissioner added that the state
budgeted the sum of N2.7 billion for
Adeniran Ogunsanya College of
Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Micheal
Otedola College of Primary Education,
MOCOPED; N1.2 billion and Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH; N3.6 billion.

"LASU is not funded by the tuition fees
paid by the students. It is not possible in
today's world to get quality tertiary
education at N25,000. Many Nigerians pay
more than that to fund their children's
education at the primary education level. Government around the world spends
more money funding basic education
than tertiary education. This is to create
platform for more people to be
educated," he said.