ENUGU — The Federal Government says it will roll out solar-powered street lighting and CCTV surveillance along federal road corridors nationwide as part of a broader effort to improve monitoring of projects, protect infrastructure and strengthen highway security.
Minister of Works, Senator David Umahi, disclosed the plan at a news conference in Enugu on Saturday after inspecting key federal road and bridge projects across the South-East, according to a report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
Umahi said the surveillance and lighting plan would not be limited to bridges, but would extend to federal highways generally.
“Let me say that our commitment in deploying solar light and CCTV to monitor the bridges and the surroundings are not limited to bridges. This is what we are going to have in all our federal highways,” he said.
Projects inspected during the tour included sections of the Enugu–Port Harcourt highway, Enugu–Onitsha road, the Eke-Obinagu flyover in Enugu, the Second Niger Bridge, and the Asaba–Onitsha highway, among others, NAN reported.
The minister said the inspections were aimed at ensuring contractors deliver to specification under President Bola Tinubu’s infrastructure agenda, and he gave an update on progress on the Enugu–Port Harcourt corridor.
He stated that the first section of the highway—Enugu to Lokpanta (61 kilometres)—had been fully completed, describing it as a vital stretch for connectivity between the South-East and South-South. He added that an additional three kilometres of the Port Harcourt road segment had also been completed.
Umahi also said the ministry had directed that laid asphalt should no longer be removed from federal road projects, indicating that engineering treatments would vary by roadway condition but that existing asphalt layers should be preserved rather than stripped.
While the minister did not provide a deployment timeline or procurement details for the CCTV and solar lighting rollout, the announcement signals an expansion of technology-backed monitoring on critical corridors, particularly in areas where theft, vandalism and insecurity have repeatedly disrupted road infrastructure and increased maintenance costs.
NAN said the minister’s tour covered multiple highways, bridges and flyovers in the region as part of ongoing assessments of project delivery and quality assurance.
