The Federal Government has ordered the removal of all unauthorised advertisements from the Second Niger Bridge and directed that, for now, only pictures of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu be displayed, the Minister of Works, Senator Dave Umahi, announced on Thursday.
Umahi issued the directive while inspecting ongoing works on the bridge and said anyone seeking to advertise on the facility must first obtain approval from the Ministry of Works. “For now, the bridge will be decorated with the pictures of President Tinubu. Once we are done with work on this bridge, I want all the illegal adverts on this bridge removed,” he said. “If anybody wants to advertise anything on this bridge, he has to apply to the Ministry of Works.”
The minister also ordered the installation of additional solar-powered lights and directed that the bridge’s closed-circuit television (CCTV) system be completed and immediately linked to the facility. He said the ministry had constituted a committee to conduct an empirical assessment of the condition of the areas above and below the waterline; the committee is expected to submit its report within 24 hours.
Umahi called for the dualisation of the bridge and urged the President’s Senior Special Assistants on the South-East and South-South to support the initiative, saying the Tinubu administration’s intervention and the quality of the ongoing work deserved recognition.
The Second Niger Bridge links Asaba in Delta State with Onitsha in Anambra State and was built to ease congestion on the old Niger Bridge and improve east–west movement. The main bridge structure is about 1.6 kilometres long; the wider project includes approach roads and interchange works. Inaugurated in May 2023, the project — initiated under the Buhari administration — was executed at an estimated cost of around N336 billion.
