The federal government has announced plans to instal gantries on flyovers to prevent damage from overloaded trucks and vehicles that disregard safety standards.

The minister of works, David Umahi. at a news conference on Wednesday in Abuja, said the move was to preserve road infrastructure in the country.

This initiative, he said, is part of a broader crackdown on overloaded trucks that are causing structural damage to bridges and flyovers across the country

The move comes after a recent incident at the Keffi flyover, where a container-laden trailer exceeding the permitted clearance height caused significant damage.

According to Mr Umahi, the government is concerned about the growing number of overloaded trucks damaging bridges, roads, and flyovers , a situation that poses significant risks to public safety and infrastructure longevity.

“We have a problem with the heavy trucks loading beyond our headrooms in our flyovers.

“We have a couple of them between Lagos and the Ibadan bridges, completed in the last administration.

“Some of them have been knocked down, the beams are knocked down and the beams are the structural elements that are carrying the slab that is carrying the vehicular loads.

“So where the beam is not there, it means that it is not safe. For some of such bridges, we have closed them down against vehicular movement and we are very concerned.”

According to Mr Umahi, it is difficult to moderate the situation of vehicles overloading and overboarding commuters.

“So what we have decided to do is to plant a gantry before every flyover and after the flyover.

“We have directed that instead of the engineering mandatory 5.6-meter headroom, which is the design standard, we are increasing beyond the standard to 6.5.”

The minister explained that the aim was to accommodate very undisciplined commuters adding thaylt the gantry would be 6cm lower than the bottom of every beam in every flyover.

“We are going to have spikes too. So if you are coming and your over boarding load is going to touch our beams to bring it down, those spikes will bring you down first.

“It will bring down the waste grade. It will bring down the load, and so the bridges will be safe.So instead of digging the pavement to increase the headroom, we decided to do that,” he said.

Mr Umahi that the ministry would begin the gantry installation with the Keffi bridge then extend it to other roads.

He assured Nigerians that the Third Mainland Bridge is safe for light vehicles, but not for heavy vehicles so the ministry closed it against heavy vehicles.

He added that Carter bmBridge also has issues that President Bola Tinubu would address as soon as the ministry’s memo is completed.

He said that the federal government was working to repair the Toto bridge that was burned down during the past administration.

He said that the project was awarded to Julius Berger in 2023 to do palliatives for N 5 billion.

“They discovered that the bridge was not safe again because of the structural elements burned during the last administration by people that occupied under the bridge.

“We went there and reviewed it and we engaged Julius Berger to remove three spans of that Ido Bridge. And they are going to do that.

“The height of the bridge is also a thing of concern. It is less than five meters and the commuters have also broken the headroom.

“Because we have the lagoon close by, we are going to dig that section to achieve mandatory 5.6 metre and when we have done that, we will also put a gantry to protect the bridge,” Mr Umahi said. 

Mr Umahi said that his attention was drawn to complaints about the crack on the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway  and assured Nigerians that it was  not a structural failure but an uncompleted segment of the road that would soon be worked on.

(NAN)