By Oluwaseun Fadugba
The Health and Safety Manager of Julius Berger Construction Company Plc., Mr Philip Geddes, on Friday said that the Lagos-Ibadan and Sagamu Interchange would be opened in the next two weeks.
Geddes made the assertion when the Assistant-Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 2, Mr Kayde Aderanti, inspected the ongoing rehabilitation of the roads.
He said that the company was working tirelessly to ensure that the roads were ready for use by the public before the Yuletide.
“The bridge will be finished before Christmas so that people can travel without any hitch.
“We are constantly working to ensure this happens. We have tow vehicles and we have security agents on ground to ensure all these are possible,’’ he said.
The AIG told the workers that he was there on the instruction of the Inspector-General (I-G) of Police to see how the road network was getting ready for use during the Yuletide.
He added at he was there to carry out a comprehensive assessment of all the security challenges on the axis.
“You will recall that in the past few weeks that gridlock has resulted to traffic accidents and insecurity.
“The I-G is of the view that we are entering the Yuletide and that people will be travelling on this road, millions of people and thousands of vehicles.
“And it is our duty to ensure that people going out of Ogun and Lagos should have a smooth and easy ride.
“Smooth ride that is devoid of any form of criminality to the people and their property from gridlock that can be prevented.
“In doing this, we are coming together, all security agencies, a kind of integrated comprehensive approach, the road safety and the Federal Ministry of Works.
“We want to adopt cooperation and togetherness to solve this problem. We in the police will provide adequate security and we will ensure that we deploy our men in a way that anybody driving through this way will feel safe,’’ Aderanti said.
Mr Olukayode Olapade, Operational Officer, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), said that “if we look at our operations for the past two months, we are close on the long bridge at about 10 to 11 p.m. every day.
“With this new arrangement with the Nigerian Police, we assure Nigerians of our continuous stay on the road and as much as there is any gridlock, we will make sure we do our possible best to ease it.
“With the situation on ground now, if you look, we have alternative roads on the long bridge and after our discussion with Julius Berger, they have cleared it,’’ he said.
