Lagos Alone Cannot Afford Fourth Mainland Bridge — Hamzat

Lagos State Deputy Governor and All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Obafemi Hamzat, has said the state government is seeking private investors to finance the long-delayed Fourth Mainland Bridge, insisting that the project cannot be funded solely with public funds.

Hamzat disclosed this during an interview on Lagos Television on Tuesday, saying the government was engaging prospective investors from Portugal, China and other countries to establish a public-private partnership (PPP) arrangement for the project.

His comments come as the Lagos State Government has spent N220.73m on the bridge project in 2026, despite the commencement of construction remaining elusive.

According to the Lagos State Budget Implementation Report for the second quarter of 2026, the expenditure represents 22.1 per cent of the N1bn allocated to the project for the year.

The report, under the Office of Infrastructure, showed that the project recorded zero performance in the second quarter, while its year-to-date expenditure stood at N220,730,307.65, leaving N779.27m of the original budget unspent.

Hamzat said the government could not finance the bridge alongside major rail projects from its own resources, describing both as capital-intensive infrastructure investments that required substantial funding.

He said the bridge had been designed and its cost assessed, adding that professionals had been engaged to support negotiations and other aspects of its development.

The deputy governor explained that the government was favouring a PPP arrangement to avoid excessive borrowing and the potential financial pressure that could arise from taking loans to execute the project.

“The Fourth Mainland Bridge is a fantastic project that we must build, but we cannot fund it on our balance sheet and fund rail at the same time. They are both monster projects, so we’ve been talking to investors,” Hamzat said.

“We will build it with partnerships, but it’s also important that we know that it will be expensive and we cannot—we don’t want to borrow to build it because it might be a challenge for us. So that’s why we believe it must be a partnership; it must be a PPP.”

He also identified toll collection as a critical factor in securing private-sector investment, noting that investors needed assurances that they would recover their investments through revenue generated from the infrastructure.

Hamzat said the discontinuation of toll collection on roads could discourage investors, particularly when they could not establish how they would recoup their investments.

He added that the government was presenting traffic data and other relevant information to prospective investors to demonstrate the project’s commercial viability and the need for improved transportation infrastructure in Lagos.

The Fourth Mainland Bridge is designed to ease congestion on the Third Mainland Bridge and other major routes, including the Carter and Eko bridges.

The proposed 37-kilometre bridge will connect Abraham Adesanya in Ajah to the north-western axis of Lagos, linking to the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway through Owutu/Isawo in Ikorodu.

The project is expected to feature three toll plazas, nine interchanges and a 4.5-kilometre crossing of the Lagos Lagoon.

Construction was initially scheduled to begin in the first quarter of 2024, with completion targeted for 2027, before the end of Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s administration. However, work has yet to commence.

The Lagos State Government selected a consortium comprising China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and China Railway Construction Investment Group as the preferred bidder in December 2022.

The bidding process began in November 2019, attracting 52 responses, of which 32 were deemed responsive.

Under the proposed PPP model, private investors are expected to finance the construction and recover their investments through revenue generated during the concession period.