The Federal Government has suspended construction works on the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway to ease traffic gridlock ahead of the forthcoming Eid el-Kabir festivities this week.
The suspension will take effect between Tuesday, June 27 and Sunday, July 2, with the construction work being carried out by Julius Berger scheduled to resume on Monday, July 3.
In an interview with Channels Television, the Federal Controller of Works, Lagos, Mrs Olukorede Kesha, urged road users to plan their travels.
According to her, the Federal Government, through the Federal Ministry of Works, has decided to listen to the yearnings of the people requesting that work be put on hold during the festive period to allow people to easily travel.
“Then we observed that the gridlock is not even allowing materials to get on site as at when due, so it is actually slowing down the pace of construction work. So, adding all this together, we decided to go to the drawing board and ask the contractor to suspend work for this period,” she said.
In a separate statement signed by Kesha on Monday, the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (Works Sector) stressed that construction work on the busy highway would be suspended from Tuesday, June 27 to Sunday, July 2.
She attributed the heavy traffic flow on the Lagos-Sagamu route of the road, the inclement weather conditions, the forthcoming Eid-el Kabir celebration and the advice of the traffic management team deployed to manage traffic-related issues on the project as the reasons behind the decision.
