The Ogun State governor, Dapo Abiodun, said the federal government has handed over the Ikorodu-Ogijo-Sagamu, Epe-Ijebu-Ode and the Lagos-Ota-Abeokua roads to Lagos and Ogun states.
The states have however, agreed to commercialise the three roads to enable them adequately maintain them.
Abiodun, who said this while addressing members of Abeokuta Club during his investiture as Honorary Patron, said himself and his Lagos State counterpart, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, have agreed to put toll gates on the roads for motorists plying them to pay.
He said the two of them had already met with President Muhammadu Buhari, who has approved the taking over of the roads by the states.
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According to him, the two states were planning to engage in Public-Private Partnership in the construction and rehabilitation of the three roads.
He said the states had met and agreed to commercialise the roads by allowing the private investors fund and toll the roads so as to ease transportation of people from Lagos to Abeokuta.
Abiodun said, “I met with my counterpart, Sanwo-Olu and we decided that as a matter of urgency, we need to take over some roads which include Epe-Ijebu road, Ikorodu-Sagamu road and Lagos-Ota-Abeokuta road to reduce the population of the people passing the Lagos-Ibadan expressway.
“Together, we met with the president to hand over the three roads to us. We sat down with the president and explained things to him. He told us to put it in writing, we wrote a joint letter, which has our two logos on it; we both signed it and I personally handed it over to Mr President, and a few weeks ago, the president handed over the roads to us.
“You cannot expect people to come to our state if they can’t move around with ease or move from Ogun to other states. We all know that the Lagos-Ibadan expressway is ongoing and the truth is that the road won’t be completed until December of next year.
“However, as a government, we have done a lot of road count and have come with the fact that if that road is completed, it does not have the capacity to transport the population of people that pass through that corridor, reason why on our own, we are embarking on the three critical routes.”
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