By; BAYO AKAMO, Ibadan
Oyo State Governor, Engineer Seyi Makinde on Saturday, said if he is re elected as governor in 2023, his focus will be to move the state from accelerated development to sustainable growth.
Addressing members of the Nigerian Guild Of Editors led by its President, Mr. Mustapha Isa on some of the projects undertaken by his administration, the governor pointed out that he is also among others determined to leave Oyo State in better shape if re-elected .
The governor hinted that all this vision lies behind the Omituntun 2.0, with his administration in the last three years, focused on putting in place policies and projects that have not only helped in repositioning the state, but in also lifting the people from poverty to prosperity.
He maintained that there will be no going back in the plans by his administration to sustain the development already put in place in the state as the administration has been able to achieve a massive success in reducing the infrastructure deficit in the state through the Alternative Project Funding Approach.
According to Gov Makinde, “some of the projects you will be seeing have been carried out through Alternative Project Funding Approach (APFA), which has been able to sanitise the mode of delivery in the state.
” Let me formally welcome you to Ibadan, the Oyo State capital and the seat of government. As we go out, we will all be in the same bus and take a tour through the projects we have done and those ongoing. I will tell you the vision behind some of the things that you would see. But feel free to challenge us with any of the ideas we are putting forward”, he said.
Engr Makinde added, ” We all know what the country is facing in terms of resources but we still have to carry on. When we leave here, we will have a stop-over at a model primary school at Bodija. From there, we will go to the Amotekun Headquarters, because security is one of the major pillars of our accelerated development (Omituntun1.0) “.
” From there, we will pass the 65km Moniya-Iseyin road. I can guarantee that you will not see a single pot-hole on that road as it is a standard for our state roads. We will also go to the Iseyin-Ogbomoso road, which is a brand new one. It didn’t exist before we came in. It is a 78km stretch of road linking Iseyin to Ogbomoso axis of the state.
” All the bridges are done and the road itself is almost completed and we still hope to commission the project in January. We will see a model PHC at Iseyin because our target is to have one functional PHC in all the 351 wards in the state. The idea is for people not to go beyond 1km radius from wherever they are leaving to access primary health care facilities.
The governor stressed, ” from there, we will come back to Ibadan, and we will be able to show you a few of the infrastructure we have been able to put together, saying, ” we will go towards the Airport. The road is being dualised and the Airport itself is central to expanding our economy, saying, ” I tell people that if you want to expand your economy and the airport only has one flight in a day, it does not tell a good story”.
” As a matter of fact, we believe aircraft should be landing and taking off every 30 minutes in the airport, if it must have an impact on the economy. Once I have the opportunity of talking to one of the top officials with Air Peace, they complain that they cannot carry a full passenger load to Ibadan because they have to take enough fuel to bring passengers and take them back to Abuja. So, we have been able to put an aviation fuel storage and dispensing facility in there.
” Once all of that is done, the only thing that will remain to make the airport fully competitive is the extension of the runway from 2.7km to 3.3km. Once we are able to do that, then we can do other possible things around there”
Governor said further, “for this administration, the unique feature for us is that some of these projects were started by one of these individuals you are seeing up there (former governors), adding, ” for us, if it’s Oyo State money, we will try to extract value from it. So, I will take you to projects that were started by Governor Akala between 2007 and 2011, a 12 kilometres stretch of road linking New Garage to around Apata. It was not touched for eight years when former Governor Abiola Ajimobi was governor but we have taken it up.
According to him, ” about 10 kilometres of that road has been completed right now and the importance of the road are two; one is that it will be the first circular road, because once you are coming from Lagos and going to NNPC, you go straight on that road and if you leave the Abeokuta-Ibadan Road, you can make a right turn, you get to Ring Road junction and at the right turn, you get to Challenge.
