•With 50 bridges due for repair and restoration, Nigeria needs a more proactive bridge monitoring and maintenance policy
The world has been mourning with the government and people of Italy over the collapse of the bridge on the main highway between Genoa in Italy and Nice in France, which had claimed no fewer than 43 lives. Many others were injured.
Since the tragic event, the government of Italy and the company that operates most of Italy’s bridges, Autostrade per l’Italia have been calling for a commission of inquiry to determine the cause(s) of the collapse of the Morandi Bridge built in 1961, with the hope to last for 100 years, like most bridges. One striking irony is that the bridge collapsed at a time that it was already undergoing maintenance.
But professional and lay commenters have already identified four likely causes of the collapse: wear and tear arising from nearness of the bridge to the sea and industries; heavy traffic on the bridge that carries about 25 million people per year; design flaws that may have resulted from the strength of materials and tendons carrying the weight of vehicles on the bridge; and weather conditions.
Italy’s ministers have accused the managing company of poor maintenance culture: “Autostrade should have done maintenance and didn’t do it,” while Autostrade has affirmed that it has carried out regular maintenance and has been pleased with comments of “companies and institutions which are world leaders in testing and inspections.” However, the government has re-affirmed its commitment to improve Italy’s infrastructure while Autostrade has agreed to pay compensation to families of victims and owners of houses damaged by the bridge’s collapse, and even to rebuild the bridge within eight months.
There is an African proverb which says that an orphan needs to listen to admonitions that are given to his peers by their parents. This proverb calls on people to learn lessons from whichever situation provides them. The tragedy in Genoa is relevant to other countries that depend on bridges to connect their citizens, especially Nigeria, with several bridges that connect various parts of the country. The bridges on the two biggest rivers in the country connect the northern part to the south and west: Jebba, Lokoja, Makurdi, and Onitsha, for example, just as Lagos, the country’s cultural and commercial centre, virtually lives on bridges: Third Mainland, Carter, Eko, Ijora, etc. In addition to bridges that go over water, the latest civil engineering vogue in the country is construction of over-head bridges for vehicles and pedestrians to ease traffic flow in Africa’s largest city.
What connects these bridges to the Morandi Bridge accident is that they are all human creations that are liable to the whims of nature and man-made products, such as sea salt and pollutants, respectively. Just like Morandi Bridge, all the bridges in Lagos, particularly the Third Mainland Bridge carry heavy traffic round the clock. In addition, other bridges in Lagos have become, in recent times, long-term parking lots for heavy trucks and trailers. Nigeria may not be similar to Italy that has been described by EU officials as the home of endangered infrastructure, but it is not hyperbolic to say that Nigeria is a site for an infrastructure that can be at peril, if prompt, regular, and proper maintenance is not an abiding part of the culture of agencies charged with maintenance of bridges across the country.
It is, however, reassuring that the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has not been unmindful of the importance of properly maintained bridges. “Many of the bridges we built in the country over the last four, five decades have not been under any form of maintenance. We now have a three-year plan affecting over 50 bridges across the country for maintenance, repairs and restoration. And it is going to cost about N270 billion over three years. Our plan is to start with about N70 to N100 billion in year one; starting with the very critical ones so that they do not collapse, and then we move to the less critical ones,” Fashola said.
Given the commitment of the minister to saving the country’s bridges, there should be no excuse for postponing needed repairs. Mercifully, the Third Mainland Bridge will undergo structural tests from today till Sunday. We hope this will be followed by appropriate measures. However, creating a situation for trailers and trucks to park on other bridges is not in compliance with requirements for sustaining such structures. As important as constructing new roads may be, it is more logical to keep existing bridges in excellent condition, to save human lives and property.
