- The second Niger Bridge will not be completed and ready for use until 2020, Uche Orji, Managing Director and CEO of Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA), has said.
- The bridge flagged off on March 2014 by former President Goodluck Jonathan was initially billed for completion in March 2018.
- Orji who briefed President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday, on the Second Niger Bridge, health care, agriculture, power and other activities of the NSIA, the sum of $2.2 million has been spent on the project preparatory state of the bridge alone.
- While speaking to State House correspondents, he said the volatile oil prices have prevented the Federal Government from contributing to the NSIA), after the initial deposit of $1billion in seed capital from the nation’s excess crude account by the Jonathan-led administration, to kick off the fund in 2013.
- He however, said despite the lack of funding, the NSIA had so far made a turnover of N15.7 billion profit, and that they had briefed the President on alternative ways of supporting the fund, which will be made known to the public when the time is right.