By Yusuf Adua
One Year to Go: What has GSM done for Oyo Town, News Live Nigeria reports.
There is no doubt that Ibadan takes the most significant chunk of the dividends of governance in Oyo state, being the capital city and the seventh-largest city in Africa according to statistica.com in 2021 based on the number of inhabitants.
Other regions in the state Ogbomoso, Oyo, Oke-Ogun and Ibarapa had always felt marginalised and unattended to at one political dispensation or the other.
In this report, News Live Nigeria takes a look at the monies expended on Oyo town and how they have been managed. Understandably, the time of the Governor Seyi Makinde led government is up in a year except he is reelected.
Recall that News Live Nigeria reported on September 23, 2020, that the Oyo state government had announced its resolve to begin the construction of Gedu-Oroki-Sabo-Asipa road in Oyo town.
A cross-section of political thinkers in the town gave the state government thumbs-up, hearing that it would be financed by the contractor handling the project.
“In as much as we are still going to pay, there is absolutely nothing to feel worked up about,” Mr. Tahir Akanni told our correspondent.
News Live Nigeria understands that the contractor would be repaid in twenty-eight months the sum of 2.9 Billion Naira expended on the project.
When our correspondents visited the facility last week to take a quality check on the road constructed following unconfirmed reports that the road would be commissioned on Thursday, March 11, 2022, by Governor Seyi Makinde himself, residents and road users gave divergent and conflicting views:
An Okada Rider, Mr. Mikail Amusa, felt that the road was needed given its unsavory state but could not believe that a whopping sum of 2.9 Billion Naira was spent on its cooking.
“I have never seen One million Naira in my life. To hear that that huge amount was spent on this road makes me feel severely uncomfortable”, he added.
A mother of three and resident of Asipa area in Oyo town, Mrs. Aina Bamidele believed that the road was the first major enjoyment source from any Oyo state government.
She furthered that the previous government gave other regions good roads but “mischievously” punished Oyo town with the polar opposite.
A grassroots politician in the town, Mr. Biodun Oyeleke, warned that the public should shy away from bitter politics and embrace the good side of the road construction milestone.
“This milestone might not have been achieved if the present government was not compassionate and ready to touch every region in the state”, Honorable Oyeleke explained.
A take-away from our discussion with development experts in the town is that though the road construction is a precious gift for residents and indigenes of Oyo, the money used for its construction was too outrageous.
Additionally, the excessiveness of this construction was because the state government did not singlehandedly foot the bill budgeted for the project outright.
Similarly, on August 12, 2020, we reported the flag-off ceremony of the ultra-modern Akesan market, handled by an indigent construction company, Mortayus Nigeria Limited, which would cost over 780 million Naira.
The governor, however, said at the flag-off ceremony that the over 400 years old market would wear a new look following the devastation that accompanied the fire accident in the market a few weeks earlier.
Our correspondent gathered that the completion of the first phase of the market was followed by uproar from some corners.
Some shopowners are hinting to journalists that the beneficiaries of the new market spaces are not the real victims of the fire incident; thus, the occupants of the new facility are disguised politicians who had forcibly sidelined the original victims.
The goal of this report is not to unravel the “scramble and partitioning” of the market spaces, but to single out the two long-lasting projects delivered by the Governor Seyi Makinde led regime, which would continue to serve as a succour in a region like Oyo where it is a widely held view that they are not always enjoying the dividends of state government administration in the state.
Also, the argument of some quarters about the lack of frugality in these projects highlighted in the minds of some observers that these projects are done with both mother Theresa and Jezebel’s fate.