The Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has lamented the recent directive from the federal government stopping governors from fixing federal roads in their respective states.
The governor, however, added that lack of funds was the reason the federal government gave the directive, saying his repeated efforts to repair the Ado-Akure and the Polytechnic roads have been unsuccessful.
Fayemi stated this while speaking in Ado Ekiti on Tuesday at a colloquium tagged: ‘Building a Sustainable Economy Through Values Orientation and Innovative Thinking’, marking the first year anniversary of his second term in office.
According to him, ” I would have loved to do some of these roads but the Federal Government said repeatedly leave our roads alone. They made it clear that if any state rehabilitates any road, there won’t be refunds and this is because there is no money.
” I have written to the federal government that I want to repair Ado-Akure road and also the Ureje road to polytechnic and ABUAD, the reply I got was still the same. Recently, I got funds from AfDB to work on the Ado-Akure road, the response is still the same.
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” For the 2020 budget estimate, FG budgeted around 250 billion naira for ministry of Works. If the government is to complete Lagos-Ibadan, Kaduna-Abuja and Kaduna-Kano expressways, it will cost a sum of N500 billion out of about 36,000 kilometers of roads waiting for rehabilitation.
” Our people don’t want to know if a road is federal or state. What they want is for the roads to be motorable. I want to assure our people that we will continue to lobby the federal government on these roads.”
Speaking on the topic of the event, Fayemi emphasized the need for people to be innovative in a bid to grow the state’s economy, adding that the government would at all time provide the enabling environment for businesses to thrive in the state.
On their part, Senator representing Ekiti North Senatorial District, Olubunmi Adetumbi and former Minister of Sports, Mr. Bolaji Abdullahi, reiterated the need for the country to redistribute its wealth and foster entrepreneurial education, to reduce the gap between the rich and the poor citizens.
They said, though very large numbers of the youths are educated, but disclosed that the education curriculum must be critically rejigged to ensure that the right education is given to graduates.
