N470M bridge collapses, causes hardship for the people of Dangana, Niger State

On Friday, a bridge in Dangana, Lapai Local Government Area of Niger State collapsed, causing motorists and commuters to be stranded for several hours.

This is following reports that the construction work on the bridge had been abandoned and millions of Naira meant for the development of the bridge allegedly stolen.

It was reported that the contract for the bridge was awarded in January 2017 at the cost N470m by the state government and it was constructed to alleviate the sufferings of motorists and commuters in the community.

The site was abandoned by Soject Nigeria Limited, the project contractor following the failure of the government to pay their balance of  N77m.

The residents of Dangana are saying that the government is playing politics with the bridge, knowing that the failure of the bridge was causing hardship to the people.

A driver, Adamu Lapai said, ”Government is extremely insensitive to the plight and the suffering of the people. If the government had paid the contractor the balance of the contract sum as at last year, he would have completed the bridge by now”.

”Because of the forthcoming general elections, we learnt that the government has released N77m for the completion of the project. Honestly speaking, if they fail to complete that bridge before the election, God knows they will not get one vote from Gulu, Lapai and other communities”, Lapai said.

The motorist, who spent over four hours on the bridge, added that ”There was no financial commitment on the side of the government and that was what made the work to stop thereby inflicting suffering on those using the bridge”.

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Yanusa Abdullahi, the village Head of Dangana community, said ” People of my community and others that make use of the bridge are suffering a lot, at times they find it difficult to take their farm produce to nearby villages or towns to sell due to the collapse of the bridge.

”Without that bridge, farmers cannot go to the market to sell their farm produce. We are appealing to the state government to speed up the construction to ameliorate the suffering of the local farmers of Dangana”.

However, Milad Jarbanda, the Project Manager of Soject Construction Ltd, gave the assurance that the bridge would be completed in 10 days.