Plans by the Governor of Ogun
State, Dapo Abiodun and his Lagos State counterpart, Babajide Sanwo-Olu to
commercialise the Ikorodu-Sagamu, Epe-Ijebu-Ode and Lagos-Abeokuta roads, by
taking them over from the Federal Government seem to have suffered a setback as
the Presidency did not agree to the proposal.
It was learnt that the
Presidency refused to handover the three roads to the government of Ogun and
Lagos States for undisclosed reasons.
Recall that in September
that the duo of Abiodun and Sanwo-Olu had agreed to commercialise the three
federal roads in order to make their maintenance an easy task; by allowing
private investors fund and toll the roads so as to ease transportation of
people from Lagos to Abeokuta.
However, Gov Abiodun, speaking on
Thursday at the Statutory Meeting of Ogun State Council of Obas, held at the
Obas Complex, Okemosan, Abeokuta, said the Presidency had replied in the
negative to a joint letter written by the two states.
Abiodun disclosed that the
Federal Government said it would rather partner with Lagos and Ogun in
repairing the roads, instead of handing them over.
The Ogun State Governor, who was
not satisfied with the decision of the Presidency, said he would re-echo the
need to transfer the roads to Ogun and Lagos States in another meeting coming
up later this month.
His words: “Governor Sanwo-Olu
and I actually put pen on paper and wrote a joint letter to the Federal
Government and demanded that these roads be handed over to us, so that we can
commercialize them. We have since gotten a response from the Federal Government
asking us that, rather than to transfer these roads to us, they want to partner
with us.
“I was at Abuja last week to
discuss this matter with the Presidency and they have asked us to come for a
meeting. Because if you take a look at the Lagos-Ota road for an example, and
look at the budget that has just been submitted; that budget provided for about
N200 billion for federal roads. There is a road in Ogun State today that will
cost about N60 billion to repair; just in Ogun State alone. So how can N200b
suffice to repair roads in Nigeria. On the Lagos-Ota road, Federal Government
is owing contractors N26 billion, so where do we start from?
“Last week, we had a meeting with
the Presidency and Ministry of Finance and we’re looking at alternative means
of funding these roads and we’re going to be visiting this issue of
transferring the roads to us.”
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