A 3-day bus ride with Fashola on South-West roads

FEMI OSINUSI was among select senior journalists who were on  tour of some Federal Government projects embarked upon by the Federal Ministry of Power, Works and Housing. He writes on the usual and the unusual that happened during the three-day tour.

The invitation came on Tuesday, March 21, two days to the commencement of the tour. It was from the Ministry of Power, Works and Housing for some senior journalists to join the minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola, to inspect some Federal Government projects that are being done in the South-Western part of the country. The invitation asked us to be in Ekiti State where the inspection would start the day after. Some of the invited journalists arrived Ekiti on Wednesday, March 22, in the evening while the media adviser to the minister, Hakeem Bello, was constantly on the phone giving us details about their trip from Abuja which probably was delayed due to the Federal Executive Council meeting held earlier in the day.

We were in our hotel room till 11.45 p.m. waiting for the arrival and getting information on the journey and at 11.55p.m., Bello told us to head for the Ekiti Governor’s Lodge where he said we would join the minister’s convoy to cover the courtesy visit of the minister. We got there at midnight and at 12.08 a.m., the minister’s convoy arrived the Government House where he later had some discussions with Governor Ayodele Fayose. After all the courtesies, the minister retired to the presidential lodge at the Government House while officials of the ministry on his entourage the senior journalists retired to our hotel rooms. Time was 2.35 a.m.

Ekiti State

The project inspection began proper,  on Thursday, at 9.00 a.m. when the minister joined us inside the Coaster bus after a with Fayose. The Ekiti governor, whose convoy was already waiting to move, surprised them when he changed his mind and decided to join us inside the bus. So, he told the minister that he wanted to show us his own projects too, especially the flyover being constructed in the centre of the state capital which he described as “the first of its kind in this part of the country.” After inspecting the bridge, we thought he would disembark and enter his official vehicle, but he did not, insisting that he would take us round the town.

Trust Fayose with his ‘display.’ Inside the bus, he told the minister that he wanted to sit beside the door to show us the love his people have for him. So he sat by the door of the bus and pronto, he opened the door and started waving at the people on the road who, upon sighting him, would go haywire with massive shouts of Oshoko, Irunmole and ebora. Apart from waving at them, he was also shaking hands with some of them, telling the minister that he would not because of power abandon his own.

Then, the governor threw the first jab inside the bus. After some time, he told the people hailing him to reduce the greetings because he was inside the bus of the All Progressives Congress (APC) people so that the minister and others will not return to Abuja to tell ‘them’ how his people loved him. The minister, on hearing this, asked Fayose to tell everyone in the vehicle which of the factions of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) those hailing him belonged to and that it is only when the PDP conducts its national convention that he will take all those hailing him serious. That would not go without a response from Fayose as he told the minister that it was those people that he used to trounce APC 16-0 and that massive defeat would continue to happen to the APC in Ekiti unless the party comes to beg him for votes. “If you APC people don’t come to beg me for the votes of Ekiti people in subsequent elections, I will continue to use these my people to defeat you roundly in all elections in Ekiti,” Fayose told the minister. “We won’t beg for votes, we will meet in the open field,” Fashola replied him.

We got to a junction in Ado Ekiti close to a market and as many young men and women sighted the governor, they almost entered the bus which door was still open. This made the minister to ask the governor why there were so many young people going about on the streets at 10.00 a.m. “Mr Governor, these young people hailing you are supposed to be either at work or in the farm, are you not bothered?” Fashola asked.  Fayose replied the minister, saying that he should wait till 2019 to know the value of those people.

On getting to a road in Ikere Ekiti where the governor eventually disembarked, he wanted to open the door to greet the people, but could not get it open. So he threw another cracker at Fashola, saying: “This APC door will never open to allow me greet my people, it needs hydraulic fluid fast fast.” Fashola replied him: “That’s the difference between APC and PDP, APC’s vehicles are automatic  while that of the PDP are manual, that’s why you could not open the door and also that’s why you could not hold your convention,” and pronto, an official of the ministry eventually opened the door effortlessly for the governor to disembark.

The minister and the governor visited a Federal Government housing project under construction at Iworoko town in the state and on getting close to the site, Fayose was the first to raise the alarm, wondering how the government expected people to live in that very far area. On getting to the site, the angry Fashola, who also agreed with Fayose that the site was too distant, asked both the site engineer and contractor whether they could live in that area if he gave them a house there free of charge or whether they would be able to stay there if he relocated the engineer’s office to the site, to which they said no. Then he asked them why they were building in an area they too could not live in. He ordered immediate stoppage of work on the site while Fayose promised to immediately allocate 40 plots of land for the scheme in a more befitting area of the town close to the road.

Ondo State

The train took the Ado Ekiti-Ikere-Akure dual carriageway which is being extended and had a brief stopover at the construction site of a Federal Government housing scheme after the Akure Airport en route Owo where we were told nine out of 12 contractors had moved to site for the building of two-bedroom, three-bedroom and condominium houses. After this, the minister paid a visit to the Ondo State governor, Mr Rotimi Akeredolu, who insisted that he and the minister should be referred to as ‘Arakunrin,’ adding that the word has more meaning than the English version of ‘Mr.’ He said arakunrin connotes nobility and humility which the ‘Mr’ title does not portray. So the minister said henceforth, he too should be referred to as ‘Arakunrin.’ However, the governor expressed his concern to the minister, saying all the Federal Government houses being built in Ondo State were concentrated in Akure, to the detriment of other towns.

The convoy then began a long-winding journey to the Omotosho Power Plant which is located at the Omotosho town after Ore on the Sagamu-Benin highway. The massive structure, which has about eight turbines that use gas, is currently supplying about 320 megawatts of power to the national grid. Officials at the power plant said about five of the turbines are currently operating at full capacity while there is the need for more gas supplies to the plant.

Osun State

Later that day, the convoy returned to Akure to link Akure-Ilesa-Ife road to Gbongan in order to get to Osun State.  At the Gbongan flyover, the minister acknowledged the efforts of the state governor, Rauf Aregbesola, on the road. We got to Osogbo, the state capital, around 8.00 p.m. and headed for the Governor’s Office where Fashola assured that the Federal Government was not in competition with any state in terms of projects and that all Federal Government directors and controllers of works and housing should be seen and treated as ambassadors by the various state governments. It was also gathered that about 10 hectares of land had been provided at the Abere area of the town for the Federal Government housing project and work has commenced on the land with some contractors mobilised to the site. Fashola also told the gathering that Osun State is planning a solar power project and the Federal Government is considering giving financial support towards the project.

As both the governor and the minister were about to leave the executive chambers, the power supply was cut off! We left the governor’s office to rest for the day in our hotel rooms.

Oyo State

We left Osogbo for Ogbomoso in Oyo State through the Osogbo-Ilobu-Ogbomoso road on Friday, March 24. We stopped briefly at the Abede-Panda area in Iresaadu to inspect the 57-kilometre Federal Government road, on  which the engineer and the contractor said work would soon be completed. This was after we had passed through Section II of the Ibadan-Oyo-Ilorin Road which is currently being dualised by a construction firm, RCC. The Section II is to connect Section 1 which had already been completed. Work on Section II had reached an advanced stage.

According to officials of the Federal Ministry of Works in Oyo State, there are 11 federal road projects ongoing in Oyo State. Among these are Sagamu interchange to Ibadan; Section II of the Lagos-Ibadan highway; Dualisation of Ibadan-Oyo-Ilorin Section II;  Dualisation of Odo Oba-Gambari-Saki that will lead to the border; Osogbo-Ilobu-Ogbomoso; design for the dualisation of Ibadan-Bakatari-Abeokuta Road; Ipele-Okeho Road; network of roads in Ogbomoso that connect to the highway, among others.

After this was the visit to Ogbomoso town where the minister inaugurated a 100-unit housing scheme which is part of the phase 1 of the Federal Government Housing Programme. The programme has an initial 200-unit scheme. However, the inaugurated 100 units comprised 12 units of condominium one-bedroom apartment, 40 units of two-bedroom and 48 units of three-bedroom which was done in collaboration with the Federal Mortgage Bank of Nigeria and a private developer. The minister assured that more housing units would come to Ogbomoso if the ministry could get land.

The minister’s train moved to Ibadan to inspect another Federal Government housing scheme at a location beside the Kola Daisi University on the Ibadan-Oyo highway in Akinyele Local Government Area. The project sits on four hectares of land and has 24 units of one-bedroom apartment, 28 units of two-bedroom and 20 units of three-bedroom. About 17 contractors and 13 engineers are already working on the site with over 1,200 workers.

We arrived the Governor’s Office in the afternoon for a courtesy visit. The state governor, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, was the first to cause drama at the executive chambers when he stopped the rendition of the national anthem abruptly, saying the anthem should not be played when everyone was moving about. Well, the executive ‘authority’ was promptly obeyed. Fashola, while giving his speech, told the gathering that he had to be careful of what he would say because he was in the midst of his in-laws! “I have to be careful here because I am in the midst of my in-laws and I don’t want the governor to ask me to return his sister because she is a good wife,” Fashola said. However, Ajimobi had a reply for him, calling him a double in-law and telling him he was yet to pay the bride price fully! “He is a double in-law because he married from us and he married us. His aunt married my uncle and he also married my sister, so he has not paid the necessary bride price and he must pay,” Ajimobi said.

However, Fashola wondered why the Oyo State government pulled out of the national housing scheme,  urging the state to return to the scheme. He also requested for additional 10 hectares of land so as to commence another set of buildings. Ajimobi immediately approved the request, describing Fashola as a field minister who would never sit in the office to monitor projects.

Ogun State

The convoy left the Oyo State Government House to connect the Iwo Road end of the Lagos-Ibadan highway for the trip to Ogun State. We stopped at the Ogunmakin area of the Ibadan end of the highway which is the Section II of the highway where it was gathered from the contractors that the part of the road is about 45 per cent completed as of March. The contract sum was put at N96 billion. The site engineers disclosed that the road could no longer be completed in June 2017, but assured that everything would be done to complete it by 2018.

After this, the convoy moved to inspect the Benin-Ofosu-Ajebandele-Sagamu end of the highway where we were told that the road was being done in four phases. While phases one and two had been completed, phase three was 60 per cent completed and phase four, which is the Ajebandele end, which was inspected, is facing reconstruction and asphalt overlay. The contract sum for the road project is N71.64 billion.

We got to Abeokuta a few minutes after 7.00 p.m. with the minister paying a courtesy visit to Governor Ibikunle Amosun  where he said the Federal Government’s National Housing Programme is ongoing at Ajebo behind the Ogun State Television (OGTV). It was gathered that the site had been cleared, access roads made and contractors had moved to site to begin work. He also said housing projects with private partners were behind the media village.

After this, we retired to our hotel rooms. Time was 9.30 p.m.

We woke up on Saturday to a surprise when the governor practically stormed our hotel and insisted he wanted to take Fashola round the state to see what he has been doing. So, he and Fashola joined us in the bus, but as the bus was about to move, he changed his mind and asked the minister to get down from the bus and join him in his official car which he drove himself. So as he and Fashola were about to come down, the Commissioner for Works in the state, Mr Olamilekan Adegbite, blurted out in his walkie-talkie; “Shadow, Shadow, Jaguar , Jaguar, Delta, allow, allow, please, allow Rocket 1 to be in front of every vehicle!” The ‘Rocket 1’ is a Mercedes Benz G-Wagon of the governor which he drove while the minister sat beside him. The ‘Jaguar 1, 2, 3’ are the security escort vehicles while the ‘Delta 1, 2, 3’ were the other vehicles carrying officials on tour with the governor. As for the ‘Shadow,’ that must have been the head of the governor’s escorts!

So the journey round Abeokuta began with ‘Rocket 1’ moving as if it was heading for the space with its high speed. In fact, at a point, the minister’s convoy, which was led by an FRSC vehicle and had been driving at maximum of 100 kilometres per hour, lost sight of ‘Rocket1’ and the ‘Jaguars.’ After some time, the governor had to order his ‘Jaguars and Deltas,’ through his walkie-talkie, to allow our bus to come directly behind him. So the escort vehicles had to slow down to allow our bus to get closer and our driver had no choice but to increase the speed of the bus, thus turning our bus into ‘Rocket 2’ and with our hearts in our mouths.  However, no matter how the driver tried, he found it impossible to match the speed of ‘Rocket 1,’ making ‘Jaguar 1, 2, 3’ to sometimes drive past us so as to provide cover for ‘Rocket 1!’

In fact, by the time Fashola alighted from ‘Rocket 1’ at the Sagamu end of the highway for our journey to Lagos and entered the bus, he thanked his God that at least, “Rocket 1 did not send me to the outer space!”

We also paid a visit to the multi-million naira Olorunsogo Power Plant on the Sagamu-Papa Lanto Road which is said to have eight turbines that supply gas to provide 41.875 megawatts of electricity to the national grid. However, due to shortage of gas supply to the power plant, it is currently providing 38 megawatts to the national grid. The company’s management listed some of the constraints of the company to include shortage of gas supply, bad situation of the road that leads to the power plant and inability to access foreign exchange to procure raw materials and equipment from abroad. The minister promised to look into some of the issues and asked the management to furnish him with the fact sheets of the problems.

Lagos State

The tour was rounded off when the minister disembarked from the Ogun State governor’s vehicle and we headed for Lagos State with a stopover at Section I of the Lagos-Ibadan highway close to the Redemption  Camp which is being handled by Julius Berger. According to the engineers, there are plans to have an interchange at the RCCG and about five pedestrian bridges at the section up to Lagos State.

According to Fashola, some Federal Government projects are currently going on in Lagos State. Among these were the Section 1 of the Lagos-Ibadan highway; the Wharf Road project in Apapa; the Creek Road project; the housing project at Igbogbo in Ikorodu; PPP projects at Osborne, with Eric Moore and Western Avenue being proposed while work on Alagbon transmission station has been completed. We were at the rehabilitation of access road to Apapa-Tincan Island port-NNPC depot (Atlas Cove).  The project is expected to be completed by the end of May as it remains the shoreline protection to be done.

Fashola also paid a courtesy visit to the Lagos State governor, Akinwunmi Ambode, where, on arrival, he saw many officials who he worked with as the governor. A lot of backslapping and hand-pumping were exchanged while he called many of them by the nicknames he gave them when he was at the helms of affair in the state. His visit to the Governor’s Lodge was the first since he left power two years ago and this was confirmed by Ambode who said the Governor’s Lodge was actuually built by the minister but he,  Ambode, was the first  to live thereDuring the visit, Fashola  said the National Housing Programme was yet to start in Lagos State due to non-provision of parcels of land by the state government while the governor promised to do something about it.

The entire tour of the Federal Government projects in the South-West ended on a lighter note when the minister, rather than going with us to rest for the day in the hotel, refused to do so, saying: “I want to go and stay with my mother, I have not seen her for some time and I have missed her so much!”