Second Niger Bridge: Don’t dare us, Igbos tell FG

                                            

Ndigbo United Assembly yesterday warned President Goodluck Jonathan led the federal government against any foul play to stop work at the second Niger Bridge.

  Addressing newsmen shortly after arising from its emergency meeting, the National President of Nidigbo United Assembly, (NUA), Sir Peter Okala
said that the statement was enough to mislead Nigerians especially
Ndigbo.

Okala’s reaction came about following the recent statement credited to the Minister of Environment, Mrs. Laurentia Mallam that works have been stopped at the
 construction site of the Second Niger Bridge sequel to lack of Environmental Impact Assessment not done before now (EIA).

Okala added that the construction and commission of the second
Niger bridge remains a bond between President Goodluck Jonathan and
Nigeria.

He expressed displeasure over the alleged comment by the
Minister for Environment where she was quoted as saying that the
Federal Government erred in commencing work on the construction of the
Second Niger Bridge without consideration for the Environmental Impact
Assessment Law, EIA.

He called on both the ministries of works and environment to put their
houses in order to enable full commencement and uninterrupted
construction of the second Bridge across the Niger, adding that
anything short of that would be not acceptable to Ndigbo and the
Nigeria in general.

His words: “NUA had to convoke this emergency meeting after reading on the pages of newspapers that the Federal Government has stopped work on the
construction of the Second Niger Bridge because of the failure of the
federal government to comply with the requirements of the EIA law
before embarking on the project.

‘’Ndigbo is taking a stand that the booth ministries should go home and do everything within their reach to settle the problem, get the EIA law in place and make sure we don’t hear this type of discouraging comments from the federal government again because the construction of the bridge is a great bond between
Ndigbo and President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration and we
wouldn’t want the federal government through agents or whosoever to
push Ndigbo to the wall”.

On her reaction , Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Environment, Mrs. Uche Ekwunife said there was no cause for alarm in the construction of the second Nigger Bridge. She added that it is one of the priority projects of President
Jonathan’s administration.

Ekwunife said: “I don’t know whether the Minister was quoted out of context, but
whatever it is, the Committee on Environment shall invite the
Ministers of Works and Environment to get first hand information over
the statement but for now, there is absolutely no cause for alarm as
President Jonathan is committed to construction and commissioning of
the second Niger Bridge before end of his tenure’’.

Meanwhile former Governor of Anambra state , Chief Peter Obi had throw more light into the statement saying the there was nothing like that as work never stopped at the site of second Niger bridge and the EIA is advancing . He said the MD of the Julius Berger constructing the Bridge denied ever stopping work at the site as nobody directed that.