Ben Adaji Jalingo
The Minister for State Regional Development, Alhaji Uba Maigari, has announced the commencement of construction work on the collapsed Namnai bridge along Wukari Jalingo high way in Taraba.
Maigari who made the declaration on Thursday during an assessment visit on the collapsed Namnai bridge, said the Federal government was concerned about the collapsed bridge and said work will commence early next week.
The Minister recalled that engineers and surveyors from the North East Development Commission (NEDC) had already carried out their technical assessment of the bridge in the last six weeks with the view to remediating it’s damage.
He disclosed that the collapsed Namnai bridge was strategic and one of the eleven bridges in the North East that has attracted the attention of the federal government that required urgent attention.
“Because of the importance the Federal Government attached to the Collapsed Namnai bridge, I had to cut short my
holiday to come down for this assessment visit to the site.
He expressed the commitment of the federal government to work on Namnai, Mayo Kham, Bantaje and Suntai bridges all in the state.
According to the Minister, his visit was a testament that the Federal Government was worried over the plight of the people who ply the road that linked the Southern Nigeria and the North Eastern part of Nigeria.
“As a responsible and responsive government, it is our responsibility to fix the collapse brigade as soon as possible to relief motorists plying the road of the hardship they have been going through since the collapse of the bridge “.
“We are in a holiday but we have cut it short to give attention to the situation.
“The governor of Taraba had visited us in the past six weeks and we discussed on emergency intervention on Namnai, Mayo Kham, Bantaje and Suntai bridges.
“With this situation which is a natural disasters, we are still going to commence work on Namnai bridge next week,” the minister assured.
Our correspondent recalls that the Namnai bridge along Wukari Jalingo high way which link the eastern part of the country to the northern collapsed in 2024 due to heavy flood in the last rainy seasons.