- Babatunde Fasola (SAN)
About 15 years after they were removed by the Obasanjo administration, toll gates are to be returned to federal highways, according to Mr Babatunde Raji Fasola (SAN), Minister of Works and Housing.
Fasola announced this decision today at the end of the meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
In the company of the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, Fasola disclosed to newsmen that there has never been any law stopping the government from having toll gates on federal roads.
“There is no reason why we can’t toll, there was a policy of government to abolish tolls or as it were, dismantle toll plaza but there is no law that prohibits tolling in Nigeria today. We expect to return toll plazas.
“We have concluded the designs of what they will look like, what materials they will be rebuilt with, what new considerations must go into them. What we are looking at now and trying to conclude is how the bank end runs”, Fasola added.
Fasola said that government was also considering to eliminate payment of cash by introducing electronic mode of payment. The Minister further disclosed that government needed to acquire more lands to expand the width of the toll gates as it proposed to have a ten lane.
