Civil society organisations on Friday staged a protest in Osogbo, the Osun State capital, demanding a thorough investigation into the damaged section of the newly commissioned LAMECO Flyover.
The protesters, who marched from Freedom Park to the LAMECO Flyover, said the incident had raised concerns over the quality of work on a project executed with public funds.
Carrying placards with inscriptions such as “Adeleke Government Should Tell Us Why the LAMECO Bridge Was Awarded to Quacks” and “We Call on EFCC to Investigate the Company That Constructed the LAMECO Flyover in Osogbo,” the demonstrators called on relevant authorities to determine the cause of the damage.
Addressing journalists during the protest, the Executive Director of the World Institute for Peace, Lamina Kamiludeen Omotoyosi, urged the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) and the Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) to carry out an independent technical audit of the flyover.
He said the organisations should investigate the damaged section of the bridge and inform the public whether the project met the required engineering standards, noting that it was disturbing for a flyover commissioned less than one month ago to develop a defect.
Omotoyosi also called on the Osun State Government to demand explanations from the contractor handling the project over the incident.
He said whether or not the contractor had been fully paid, the government owed residents an explanation as to why the defect occurred shortly after the bridge was opened to traffic.
Omotoyosi further appealed to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) to investigate the contract sum and execution of the project.
According to him, “We are not saying that the government did not pay the exact amount requested by the contractor. However, whether the government paid the full amount or not, it should question the contractor on why this is happening barely one month after the flyover was commissioned. We also call on the EFCC and the ICPC to come to Osun and investigate the exact amount awarded for the construction of the LAMECO Flyover. These are our demands.”
Reacting to the concerns raised by the protesters, the Osun State Director of Highways, Ministry of Works, Engr. Moruf Ojebode, explained that preliminary findings showed the problem was a minor engineering defect caused by a hole beneath the asphalt surface rather than any failure of the bridge structure.
The highways director noted that the bridge remained structurally sound, stressing that the piers, beams, slabs and retaining walls were all intact.
He assured members of the public that there was no cause for panic, adding that repair works had commenced and the flyover would be reopened to motorists within a day or two.
AMILOADED had earlier reported that a section of the recently commissioned 672-mete4 LAMECO flyover in Osogbo suffered damage.
The State Governor had on July 1st this year, commissioned the flyover and opened it for public use.
However, a section of the flyover sunk earlier hours of Friday, following the downpour which happened for almost 8 hours between Thursday and Friday in the state capital.
