Before the inauguration of the Seventh National Assembly in June this year, the Ohan bridge along Alapa – Bakase – Baruten road was in deplorable condition.
The importance of this bridge to the socio-economic activities of the people of Kwara state can not be over-emphasised, for besides being on the road that links Ilorin, the state capital, with the Kaiama-Baruten axis of the state’s northern senatorial district, the bridge could also be said to be on an international route.
Kosubosu, the headquarters of Baruten local government? and the last Nigerian city on the road, serves as a border town to neighbouring Benin Republic and as the food basket of the state.
The situation of the bridge then was so terrible that commuters had to disembark from the vehicles in which they were traveling to allow only the driver to drive to the other end of the bridge before continuing their journey.
The National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), Alapa zone, claimed it spent about N3m to reconstruct the damaged portion of the iron-rod made bridge with plank.
The hope of getting the bridge repaired, however, became brighter when a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Moshood Mustapha, alongside some expatriate engineers and select journalists visited the area to assess the bridge sometimes in June, this year.
Mustapha who represents Asa/Ilorin Federal constituency at the National Assembly, after assessing the bridge promised to move a motion for its urgent repair by the Federal Ministry of Workers at subsequent sittings of the House.
He equally promised to liaise with the Kwara state government to see how they could work together to improve on the condition of the bridge before help would come from the federal government.
The efforts of Mustapha (the deputy chairman, House Committee on petroleum -down stream) have paid off, as the state government announced that it had fixed the Ohan bridge.
The state’s commissioner for Works, Dr. Abubakar Kennike, when he hosted the new Federal Comptroller of Works in the state, Engineer Seyi Aiyegbe, said that the state government had spent N15m on the reconstruction of the bridge.
According to Kannike, the government has also commenced work on the reconstruction of the Baruten-Kosubosu Road, as well as the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital road (both Federal roads).
The commissioner, who restated Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed’s commitment to ensuring that all roads in the state are motorable at all times, recalled the agreement reached during the governor’s recent meeting with officials of the Federal Ministry of Works, where he called for partnership between his government and the ministry on the reconstruction of both the federal and state roads in Kwara.