Sanwo-Olu Unveils Plans for Construction of 4th Mainland Bridge

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has revealed that the state government plans for the construction of the fourth mainland bridge, saying his administration will make use of private equity to achieve the project.

The governor, who made the revelation while fielding questions on Channels Television Sunrise Daily programme on Wednesday, said: “Two weeks ago, we advertised the fourth mainland bridge project locally and internationally. Our total budget for next year is about $3 billion, and that’s the highest in the country. The fourth mainland bridge, from the design we have seen, is a 37 kilometre bridge. We cannot handle it alone, so we are going to use private equity. We have advertised, and we have the alignment; we have the right of way and all of the biometric study.  Let everyone come and play a role.”

Sanwo-Olu, who used the opportunity to highlight his administration aim to deliver his Greater Lagos vision, added that the successes his administration has recorded in the last 196 days have been in the area of security of lives and property of the residents of the state.

“At a period like this–going to the end of the year-criminal activities are usually on the increase because people usually want to do things to make quick money. We are working on salvaging the situation. We have a new Commissioner of Police who has hit the ground running from the first day he came in.

“You heard of the unfortunate incidence of an expatriate that was stabbed to death by domestic staff. I was up till 2 a.m. last Friday because we were tracking the suspects. The Commissioner of Police led the team and we were able to apprehend the two suspects.

“Policing and security come in two ways. It comes with intelligence. What kind of information do you have prior to or after? You really don't know who has a criminal tendency by mere looking at their faces. It has to be that we have more men out there in the streets, and we must have ability to be able to respond when there is a distress call.

“That's why we keep increasing the number of vehicles we are providing for them. We keep supporting them with a lot of communication gadgets. We keep saying to them that whatever they need to be able to respond when the distress comes, which is often sudden, we'll give to them. When we do the analysis, it will be an issue of how well were we able to track and get the perpetrators of these acts,” he said.

The governor reiterated his administration commitment to adopt technology to combat crimes and reduce them to the barest minimum.

According to him, “One of the things we realise is that security is also going technologically. You need a lot of technology and devices to monitor crimes, and while we are doing a lot of hard things, we are also building up technology. Next year, we are going to build a new Control and Command Centre as part of our Safe City project and Mega City security deliverables. We are going to bring to Lagos State all those security measures you see in developed nations.

“At the first phase, we will install about 2,200 high definition cameras across the state. From a CCTV, we can view, review, monitor and track incidence as they happen. We will also train officials on how to operate them. These are some of the things that will happen in the first quarter of next year.”

On the issue of the Nigerian Union of Road Transport Worker (NURTW), he said: “The NURTW is a national body of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC). It is a registered trade union organisation.

“Like other unions, they are under the supervision of the state government. We regulate and supervise them, and that they would be proscribed if they don’t conduct themselves well.

The governor also touched on education, the environment as well as the economy of the state, pledging his administration continued investments in these areas for the good of every Lagosian.