Commuters of the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway have lambasted Julius Berger Nigeria Limited over the poor construction work on the Longbridge section of the road.
Some of the drivers who ply the road wondered if the company could not have carried out such a poor job if it had been in their its home country -Germany, while others blamed the Federal Government for not supervising the construction work.
The Lagos-Ibadan “Longbridge” as it is popularly called is a five-kilometre bridge stretching from the Warewa end of the expressway to OPIC, Ogun State and was part of the sections of the expressway firstly reconstructed by the company when the project started.
It could be noticed that the tar on the expansion joints is often wears-off washed whenever it rains, returning the road back to its former state before acclaimed repair.
Truthlive.net recalls that even though Julius Berger had been seen at different times doing repair works on the joints, they still remain as bad as they were before repair with the joints degenerating into potholes and iron bars linking the joints sticking out dangerously.
It was gathered that there are almost 20 damaged joints on the bridge causing motorists plying the route to manoeuvre their way just in order to avoid the bad portions of the bridge.
Similarly, motorists driving into Ogun State are first greeted with the first gapping pothole immediately after the OPIC U-turn.
A driver, Sunday Adebambo who lamented the state of the bridge said, “I am shocked to see the extent potholes have filled the Longbridge. The road has become a death trap. I wonder the kind of job the company did here. Is that what they do in their country? I am angry that we have to live with this kind of road and nobody is holding the contractor accountable. When did they reconstruct that bridge and it is already in that condition? I am highly disappointed because I used to know them as a top-quality construction company. Something has to be done about the bad joints. The shock absorbers of my car are damaged because of this Longbridge.”
Another motorist said the potholes might also endanger the lives of motorists if their vehicles broke down along the bridge.
According to him, “The government has to fix those joints before they get worse and put people at a security risk. The Longbridge has always been a dangerous place to park whenever it is dark, and know that there are serious potholes there, vehicles can easily break down.”