Opening Oyo state through roads construction

The Makinde-led government in Oyo state is opening more parts of the state through roads infrastructure as Bayo Agboola reports.
One of the major things the incumbent administration of Governor Seyi Makinde seems to be noted for is the opening of nooks and crannies of the state through what could best be called its revolution for road infrastructure in the all the zones in the state.


No wonder the governor at the Faculty of Agriculture and Natural Sciences of Ladoke Akintola University on Saturday, December 4 2021 minced no words in gleefully boasting of his administration’s feat in massive  roads infrastructure in the state.


According to Governor Makinde, by 2023, his administration would have spent close to N70 billion to build road infrastructure to connect all the five administrative zones of the state. He went further to state that his government would complete the 38-kilometre Oyo-Iseyin Road, the 46-kilometre Saki-Ogbooro-Igboho Road and the recently awarded 76.7-kilometre Iseyin-Fapote-Ogbomoso Road in record time. The same way it did with the 68-kilometre Moniya-Iseyin road.
Although the administration of Gov Makinde was few years ago subjected to series of criticism especially from the opposition party, with most of the critics comparing the immediate past administration of late Senator Abiola Ajimobi’s  first two years in office in terms of infrastructure development, naming of roads constructed, those patched or touched by the administrator of late Senator Ajimobi with that of Gov Makinde with intention to berate him for running what they called mere ‘populists’ style leaving the infrastructure particularly roads unattended to.


Makinde explains why
Governor Makinde on his part however wanted those who want to listen to him to know that all he was doing was for the betterment of the state mostly on roads and other aspects in the infrastructure sector, saying it would start to manifest as well as speak for him after two years in office. 


Going by the construction of roads by the present administration, the Seyi Makinde administration may emerged as the best civilian administration with tremendous achievement in the area of road and infrastructure in the history of Oyo state.


The governor further emphasized that his administration embarked on the building of road infrastructure to connect all zones of the state in order to boost its economy.


The road building revolution by the administration kicked off with the fixing of most of the roads in Ibadan started by the immediate past administration in places like Iwo road, Old Ife road, Basorun – Akobo road as well as the Akala expressway – Kuola after which he proceeded to opening up with others including the 65 kilometres Moniya-Ojutaye-Ijaiye-Iseyin road in June this year.


Speaking at the commissioning of the road, Gov Makinde said the delivery of the road project was another promise kept and that the project is one of many projects that would play a major role in engineering a modern Oyo state where the prosperity of the people through economic integration serves as the fulcrum of government’s decisions.


“This road remained in a deplorable state for several years. I remember that immediately after I became governor, I began to receive SOS messages regarding this road. I remember this particular request on social media from someone who said some parents have had to withdraw their children from school because of their inability to navigate this road to get to school.


“The state of this road also kept people away from going from Moniya to Iseyin. On a good day, they would spend three hours out here. You can then imagine what it would be like on a bad day when perhaps a truck has broken down at one of the terrible spots. 


“Although a contract for the rehabilitation of this road was awarded by the previous administration, our initial inspection visits in 2019 revealed that the contractors had not even done five per cent of the work here before abandoning it. We therefore had to revoke and re-award the contract. I always say that whatever decisions we make at any point in this administration would be based on science, data and logic. So, we factored in that we wanted this road to be top grade and last at least 10 years before any rehabilitation.” 


Gov Makinde added further that, “For this reason, we decided to increase the stubbing course from about 150mm to about 200mm, and we also changed the asphaltic wearing course from 40mm to 50mm. Looking at the initial design, we also realised that there was inadequate provision for drainage. So, we had to remedy that too.


“More importantly, the original contract was for what they called, ‘limited rehabilitation’. This is just a fancy way of saying they would patch the road. They would look at those areas that they felt were bad and do some rehabilitation works.
“For us, this was flawed logic. We knew this would only amount to kicking the ball forward. In a year or so, we would be back to doing major rehabilitations.


“So, with all the available data, we decided that the more logical thing to do would be to increase the contract sum by about 2.9 billion naira and deliver the quality of road that our people deserved. What we have done here is the total reconstruction of this 65km road at 9.9 billion naira and this translates to 152 Million naira per kilometre. So again, based on science, data and logic, we made the best decision overall. Of course, we understood the economic significance of this road not only to individual residents but also to the growth of commerce and industry.The Moniya-Ijaiye-Iseyin Road is the link between Ibadan and Oke-Ogun, Oyo State’s food basket.”


In corroboration
In continuation of Gov Makinde’s administration road infrastructure revolution, the state commissioner for works, Prof Daud Sangodoyin on December, 3 announced that the state government had approved the award of the contract for the construction of the 76.7km Iseyin/Fapote/Ogbomoso road at the cost of N43.1billion.


He said, “Today, at the 14th meeting of the executive council of Oyo state, we approved the award of the construction of Iseyin / Fapote/ Ogbomoso Road, which is 76.7kilometres. The road is split into two simply because we want the road to be completed on time and to have quality construction. We also want it to be completed within 13 months.


“The first half is from Iseyin, where we have the Ansarudeen Mosque at Atori junction to Apinwo village, which is about 38.1kms.The other half is from Apinwo village to Randa Ogbomoso, which is about 38.7km. These two roads have two bridges, one each. The one on the Iseyin to Apinwo Road is 65 metres span while the other one at Apinwo/Randa axis is about 45 metres span with an underpass at the end of the Ogbomoso side. The total value for the road is about N43.1billion. 


“The first half is N20billion while the other is N23.1b.The commencement of the process is immediate because the government is going to give an advance payment of 30 per cent to the contractors. In January, we would also advance them another 20 per cent so that they must have done almost 75 per cent of the job before they can request for any other payment from the government. We are also trying to expedite the work during the dry season so that before we get to June/July, the substantial part of the work would have been done.

“The first part of the road is awarded to Messrs KOPEK Construction and the second part is awarded to Messrs Kremborg construction Ltd. These two contractors would be mobilised next week and hit the ground running on the job.”
If the rate at which Oyo state road infrastructure revolution is going under the administration of Gov Seyi Makinde, the state may in the next one year be among the state with the best road infrastructure in the country.