…as alternative route collapses

By Ozioruva Aliu

BENIN CITY — For three agonising years, the Ovia Bridge along the Benin-Lagos Expressway has become a dreaded death trap, claiming lives and properties while subjecting thousands of motorists to hours of frustrating delays.

The 1981 structure, now over four decades old, has defied repeated palliative works and stands as a monument to Nigeria’s infrastructure decay.

NDV investigations reveal that the route was originally conceived and constructed between 1962 and 1963, with the highway subsequently reconstructed and dualised. Despite intervention during President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration, when the road received rehabilitation, the Ovia Bridge itself was only patched up, never rebuilt.

The bridge was shaking  — Edo Assembly Member cries out

Hon. Charity Aiguobarueghian, Minority Leader in the Edo State House of Assembly representing Ovia North-East I Constituency, raised the alarm last year, describing a terrifying scenario.

“Sometimes people spend hours just to cross this small bridge,” he lamented. “When we walked through it, it was shaking. All the irons are pulling off; they are on the surface without covering. There is no possibility of vehicles passing without effect, even at five kilometres per hour. The potholes are so much that an unwary driver running into it at speed would swerve off the road.”

We fix our cars every day, says Igho, a commercial driver.

Desperate to escape the nightmare, motorists turned to the Benin-Iguobazuwa-Okada road as an alternative. But that route, constructed in the 1970s and partially rehabilitated under previous administrations, has now also collapsed.

Commercial motorists told NDV they repair their vehicles daily. A driver, Joseph Igho, said recent heavy rains have caused further catastrophic damage.