Residents of Akute, Alagbole Groan as Amosun Pulls Down Solid Bridge for New One

By Our Reporters

Ogun State residents living in Alagbole, Akute, Lambe, Matogun and Denro working in Lagos are not finding things easy. They are practically groaning as they step out of the comfort of their homes to their various place of work in Lagos following the multi-billion Naira bridge embarked upon by Governor Ibikunle Amosun of Ogun State.

In as much as many are commending the governor for improving infrastructure in the area, residents are however sad that the new structure has brought untold hardship upon them, forcing many to spend as much as two hours on a journey of less than 30 minutes to and from work.

I have been on the road in the last two hours, just take a look at what they are doing there, what is wrong with this old bridge? Just nothing!Besides what is the rationale for pulling down this solid bridge when the one they are building is just one percent completed”, Wasiu Olorunsogo told our reporters.

Traffic from Alagbole approaching the bridge under construction[/caption]

He explained that the old bridge is not on the path of the new bridge they are building. So why can’t they leave this bridge for us to use while the work is in progress. When they finish that one, they can now direct traffic to the new bridge before they destroy this old one if it must be pulled down at all cost.

Traffic on the road after rush hours. All photos shot after after rush hours at about 10:30PM[/caption]You can see that they even wanted to pull it down totally first and cut all of us off only for them to realize how wrong they were before they put it on hold. You see, after destroying it to some distant, they started diverting traffic to the remaining structure on the bridge again. You see, this is what we are saying that our politicians do things before they think.

“if he wants to close the road to traffic so that the work will move on fast, the Akute – Denro road is an alternative route, why didn’t the governor fix that road first before embarking on the construction of the Ojodu-Alagbole Bridge”, he said.
Peter Bassey, who also lives in Lambe said he gets home very late in the night each time he takes the Ojodu-Alagbole bridge because of ongoing construction in the area.

He described pulling down of the old bridge which has not shown any structural defect for a new one as nothing but a share waste of scarce resources.
“We don’t need this kind of bridge here. It is needed in Denro. Have you been to that place, when that yearly water comes, it towers as high as 10 feet in some places. That is where we need this kind of bridge”, he said adding that politicians must learn to priorities things.

“You see, with what has happened, most of us now take Denro-Ojodu road which is in worst condition as we speak, so you can see the dilemma this so called bridge has brought upon us”, he said.

Our correspondents report that many of the residents have resulted to trekking while Okada transport far has gone up.