By Harry Awurumibe, State House, Abuja
Determined to open up Ogun state more for economic growth, the Governor of Ogun state, Dapo Abiodun will next week Wednesday, February 26 perform the turning of the sword on the Ijebu-Ode to Epe, Lago road which will cut the time spent on the road from Ijebu-Ode to Lagos by half.
This much was disclosed Thursday in Abuja by the Governor while briefing State House Correspondents
after paying a courtesy visit to President Muhammadu Buhari at Presidential Villa Abuja in the company of former Governor Aremo Olusegun Osoba.
Gov. Abiodun who spoke after Osoba’s remarks told reporters that:
“Like Baba said, we have come to see the Preisdent to discuss on how he can use his fatherly position to give us the needed support that will allow us to further expedite on achieving the vision of the state as we have encapsulated and dimensioned it. Our vision for the state is to provide a focus and qualitative governance while creating an enabling environment for a Public-Private sector Partnership. We believe that is very fundamental to the economic growth if the state and individual prosperity of our people.
So in that, lies in – how do we create an enabling environment because we believe and enabling environment leads to economic development. If there is development, there will be individual prosperity. One of the critical factors to economic development is access, access to your state. Our state today is the closest state to the biggest economy in this country. It is important that people can move between our state and Lagos state and also to the hinterland. Today, the busiest highway in this country passes through our state. You cannot travel between Lagos and the rest of the country without passing through our state.
So we came and told the President that there are alternative routes apart from Lagos- Ibadan Expressway, the truth is that even the construction is completed, that highway does not have the capability to accommodate the traffic that has now completely gone beyond what was anticipated. That highway cannot carry that traffic. So we must begin to look for alternative routes, what come to mind is the Shagamu to Ikorodu road, the Epe to Ijebu-Ode road, the LAGOS-Ota-Abeokuta road these are alternative roads that would allow for us to efficiently move people from Ogun to Lagos and vis-visa and the rest of the country. Today, Ogun state is the industrial capital of this country because people have found it convenience. This administration is even making that better, it has carried out a few reform to help us to reposition our state. We have created the Ogun State Investment Promotion Agency, we have created Ogun State Public Private Partnership Agency, we’ve created the Ogun State Business Environment Council, all these are agencies that we created that will enable us to market the state better, through the investment promotion agency. Second, to ensure that contract between Ogun state and potential partners are not skewed in favour if either the state or those parties – that is the PPP office. And three, the business environment council – is that which once the partner is now in the state, you can call the partner cut through the bureaucracy involved in applying for land, applying for title, applying for building permit and so on and so forth, that becomes a one-stop-shop. To achieve all these, we need to have the right infrastructure, so we came to the president to help us in allowing the Federal ministry of works to transfer these roads to us we would be commercializing them – they are commercial roads anyway. The Shagamu to Ikorodu road was the old Ibadan road, it is in that road that we have the biggest NNPC depot on that road. There are so many factories on that road and most of these factories have gone moribund. Trucks drivers are also refusing to go and load on that road. If that road is transfer to both Lagos and Ogun state, we will commercialize it we will have these road rehabilitated, constructed and upgraded. We have already secured the financing for this purpose. On the 26 of this month by the grace of God, we will be turning the sword on the Ijebu-Ode to Epe road. This is a state road, Lagos state has done it to their border, we are completing the fourteen kilometers between that border and Ogun state and that road will be completed in one year. But I believe that when that road is completed, people coming from the east, Ondo, Ijebu, Ibadan will have an option, they don’t have to go toLagos Ibadan expressway. This will ease the ability to do business in Ogun State. These are one of the things we came to discuss with Mr President about. We also came to discuss with the President what we are doing in agriculture and the support that we need for that. We have gotten enough support today, we have attributed it to the President food security programme. We have launched the Anchor Programme Scheme, today the CBN has made Ogun State the model state for the South West, we have employed about 14,000 people last eight month in that programme between now and end of the year we hope to employ another 50,000 to 75,000 in that programme. You will agree with me that each person is about three other person by multiplying effect. So we have come to solicit for support of the President with further needed support of the CBN and the federal government in agriculture programme. These are the things that we came to discuss with Mr President and I am glad to say that we got a lot of attention, we got a lot of support and that we should be seeing that manifest in the next few weeks.
