The Delta State Government has completed the rehabilitation of the over 100-year-old colonial bridge linking Oha to Orerokpe, the headquarters of Okpe Local Government Area.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports the old and narrow Oha bridge is one of the oldest surviving relics of the colonial masters in Delta.
Prior to its rehabilitation, the bridge, which was about six feet wide, and could barely take one vehicle at a time, had been taken over by overgrown weeds.
The over 100-year-old bridge was said to have been constructed by the colonial masters to facilitate their movement into the hinterland of the Niger Delta from the commercial city of Warri.
The construction of the bridge by the colonial masters led to the Effurun-Oha-Orerokpe-Oviorie-Eku road project, which connects the university town of Abraka, Agbor and towards Onistha on the one hand and Uromi, Edo State en-route northern Nigeria on the other.
However, the story of the historic bridge has changed as the Delta State Commissioner for Works, Chief James Augoye on Monday handed the completely rehabilitated bridge to the State Government for commissioning.
See photos below:
Meanwhile, the Commissioner for Works had expressed the State Government’s assurance that all on-going road projects in the State would be completed before the end of the Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s administration.
He reiterated the determination of the Okowa led administration to open up agrarian communities by providing road infrastructure to improve the economic activities of the rural communities.
While assuring the state government’s commitment towards the construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation of roads projects across the state, Augoye said, “all on-going road projects would be completed before the end of this administration”.
TNG reports Governor Okowa promised to deliver the bridge during the 2019 electioneering campaign at Adane-Okpe Primary School in Orerokpe.