By Ike Uchechukwu, CALABAR

President Mohammadu Buhari has inaugurated the new Ikom bridge in the central Senatorial District of Cross River State.

The president who did the commissioning virtually on Tuesday said the essence of the bridge was to boost trade in and around the Calabar Port and ensure transport connectivity from the area to other parts of the country.

His words:”This is our commitment to upgrade, renew and expand Nigeria’s infrastructure. We do not act on infrastructure by accident

“In 8 years, I am proud to say, that we have doubled Nigeria’s stock of infrastructure to gross domestic product GDP from about 20 percent to over 40 percent.

“The Ikom Bridge, is meant to boost trade, in and around Calabar Port and facilitate transport connectivity from the south-south, through north central to the north east.”

The New Ikom Bridge is located on a major South – North arterial highway and has been classified as a high priority project following the recommendation for its construction by the National Planning Commission.

Speaking more about the project and it’s implementation, the Minister of works and Housing, Babatude Fashola who address dignitaries at the commissioning virtually said, “Today Mr President connects Cross River to Benue through the Ikom Bridge.

“This is a story of development and a story of people, which cannot be fully told here. It is a story of how the Mohammadu Buhari administration met the people at their needs, even if many of these people will never meet Mohammadu Buhari in person,” Fashola said.

Vanguard reports that the construction of the New Bridge at lkom arises from the headroom inadequacy of the existing bridge and the need to cater for heavy duty vehicles along the project corridor as well as enable the Calabar Sea Port, Airport, and Free Trade Zone to be fully functional and accessible to traffic from the strategic North East and North

The scope of works involves the construction of a 360m length Bridge with reinforced concrete deck slab on pre-stressed concrete beams: each 36m long over 10 spans. The width of the bridge is 11m made up of 8m carriageway and 1.5m raised walkway with 2 No. 1.75m high precast concrete wall rails.

The scope includes the construction of approach roads and spur with a total length 1.2 km: this entails overlay of asphaltic wearing course (40mm thickness) and binder course (60mm thickness) of road pavement.