NIGERIA (Lagos)-The Fourth Mainland Bridge will not be realizable for now because according to the current plan, not less than 318 buildings may be demolished for it to take off.

This was disclosed yesterday in Lagos by the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Ben Akabueze and the Commissioner for Works and Infrastructure, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, during a ministerial press briefing on analysis of Year 2014 budget.

Speaking further, Dr. Hamzat said the present plans for the bridge is tasking and costly as it would gulp a total of N320 billion for eight kilometers.

“And to construct a kilometer of that bridge is about N40 billion, so the issue is that we also need to factor the cost of demolishing the 318 buildings into the project. Alot of these buildings are beautiful houses.

“We need to remember that when motorists make use of the bridge, they will need an exit route. And this route will require motorists to drive through a road that will afford them to link at Ijede in Ikorodu and another link to the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.” Hamzat said.

Furthermore, on the allocation for education in the state, Mr. Akubeze said: “We have N9.2 billion that would be spent on LASU in 2014. Out of the N9.2 billion, N2.6 is for capital expenditure while N6.6 billion is for recurrent expenditure.”

According to him, the sum of N2.7 billion was budgeted for Adeniran Ogunsanya College of Education, AOCOED, Ijanikin, Micheal Otedola College of Primary Education, MOCOPED; N1.2 billion and Lagos State Polytechnic, LASPOTECH; N3.6 billion.

“LASU is not funded by the tuition fees paid by the students. It is not possible in today’s world to get quality tertiary education at N25,000. Many Nigerians pay more than that to fund their children’s education at the primary education level. Government around the world spends more money funding basic education than tertiary education. This is to create platform for more people to be educated,” he said.