Nigeria’s Minister of Works, David Umahi, has said he personally paid for President Bola Tinubu’s banners displayed on the rehabilitated First Niger Bridge, insisting that no public funds were used to promote the President on the federal infrastructure.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with ARISE News, Umahi said advertising rights on federal infrastructure had been franchised to private operators who pay the Federal Government and are permitted to sell advertising space commercially.
“I paid for it,” Umahi said of the Tinubu banners.
“He collected money from me, my personal money, to put those posters up,” the Works Minister added, referring to the franchise operator responsible for advertising on the bridge.
Umahi said the arrangement meant that other political figures, including former Anambra State governor and NDC presidential candidate Peter Obi, could also advertise on the First Niger Bridge if they approached the franchisee and paid the required fee.
Asked whether Obi would be allowed to display his own banner on the bridge, Umahi said the matter was not his to decide because the advertising space was commercially operated.
He said Obi would have to “pay whatever the franchisee asks,” adding: “I’m not going to roll out the red carpet for him.”
Umahi maintained that the display of Tinubu’s images should not be interpreted as the Ministry of Works using federal infrastructure exclusively for the President’s political promotion.
He said the Federal Government had franchised advertising opportunities on its infrastructure as part of efforts to generate revenue from public assets, with private operators paying government for the rights to commercially exploit the available spaces.
According to the minister, advertising was not restricted to Tinubu or members of the ruling All Progressives Congress.
Umahi said images of governors from the Southeast and South-South had also been displayed, including governors who do not belong to the APC.
His comments follow controversy over the display of Tinubu’s images on the First Niger Bridge, which links Onitsha in Anambra State with Asaba in Delta State.
The Federal Government recently reopened the bridge following 38 days of emergency rehabilitation, with Umahi saying the intervention included asphalt resurfacing, median demarcation and other safety improvements. Further works, including surveillance cameras, solar lighting and maintenance of parts of the steel structure, were also outlined by the minister.
Umahi had previously publicly called for Tinubu’s images to be displayed on the bridge while urging residents of the Southeast to recognise the administration’s infrastructure projects in the region.
In the ARISE News interview, however, he sought to distinguish the political banners from the Federal Government’s expenditure on the bridge itself, saying he had paid for the displays from his own money.
“I paid for it,” Umahi reiterated.
Demola Ojo
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