Governor of Ogun State, Dapo Abiodun on Thursday at the State House, Abuja, presented a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari requesting for Federal Government’s permission to reconstruct the damaged Agbara to Lusada to Atan road in the state.
Abiodun also presented to the president a 387-page book containing the developmental activities of the State Government between May 2019 and May 2020.
Speaking to State House correspondents after the presentation, Abiodun said he updated the president on his administration’s achievements in areas of infrastructure development, education, health, youth empowerment, agriculture and food security.
He revealed that his administration had embarked on reconstruction of township roads as well as roads linking the state with neigbouring states.
“Our biggest industrial hub in this country is the Agbara Industrial Estate. There’s a road that goes from Agbara to Lusada to Atan – that road is the road that leads to this Agbara Industrial Estate.
“The road is in such deplorable state that trailers that are coming from the port or taking finished goods from the industrial estate to the rest of the country or back to the port, continue to have accidents and delays to the point where some of the multinationals have threatened to leave the country and go to another country.
“So, I came with a letter, requesting Mr President to note that because our people do not know the difference between a federal and a state road, this road has continued to be an embarrassment, not just to us in Ogun State, but to the entire country.
“We have decided to intervene in the road, ourselves as a state and wanted Mr President to know that we are going to reconstruct that road at our expense and wanted him to inform the Federal Ministry of Works that we’ll be doing so and we’ll also be making demands on them for a full refund of the reconstruction of that road,” Abiodun said.
The governor also stated that he briefed the president on the deplorable conditions of the Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta road, and the need for urgent rehabilitation of the road.
He said: “I also shared with him the pains on the Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta Road as well. I came with a letter that I’ve written earlier on and pictures, to show him the deplorable state of this road.
“The Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta Road is probably the second busiest road in this country, these roads are in such deplorable condition and we understand that the federal government cannot afford to build all the roads at the same time, but as a state government, Lagos State government and I have written to Mr President, asking Mr President to transfer that road to us.
“It’s a commercial road and we’ll commercialise it so that we can take that burden off the federal government.
“I’m glad to say that Mr President was very pleased with these our discussions and these applications and has promised to see what he will do to give us the necessary support so that this can also help us in the economic upliftment of our region.’’
On recent fuel price and electricity tariff hike, the governor said the new prices reflected current realities in the country
“First, you want to enjoy lower prices when the prices of crude are low and then not want to pay for a slight increase when there is an increase in price of crude.
“The price of crude is directly proportional to the price of refined products. So, I believe that is what is happening at the moment.
“In terms of the tariff increase in the electricity industry, again, we also have to decide what we want to do.
“We all complain that we are not generating enough electricity and we all complain about the fact that we don’t have the right infrastructure to transmit electricity,
“We complain about the fact that the distribution companies do not seem to be efficient. The problem is because, perhaps, the pricing is not right.
“If you want people to invest in production of gas, in gas floatation, which our turbines and our power plants rely on, we must ensure that the entire value chain is profitable.
“Because if one part of it is not profitable, that means there will be a short fall in one of the value chains, if we don’t have enough investment.
“So, if you don’t have enough investment in gas gathering, if we don’t have enough investment in gas transportation, we will not have enough gas supply to sustain the quantum of generation we require as a government or as a nationnan.’’
