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FLYOVER AT GENERAL GAS
Flag Off, Speech of His Excellency
Governor Seyi Makinde
All the people that have come to speak, all spoke English,
even your LGA chairman spoke in English, the
Commissioner spoke English, SA infrastructure also spoke in
English. Is that the way it should be? Good!
Eka abo so ri eto wa yii oo.…
Well, let me greet the chairman of Peculiar Ultimate Concern, I
greet you oo. What we came to do here today Is to ag-off the
y-over bridge that will connect Idi ape, Akobo Oju irin all the
way to Odogbo barracks. I don't know why they have not invited
the Lagelu people, because, Oh, Lagalu is here. Akinyele Is also
here, which means you arranged the gathering by federal
constituencies.
Well, this bridge is important to our economy - because if you
come to this place in the morning, those who are going to work,
those going to gate, those going to Idi-ape, you did see that the
queue is much. As I said earlier before, I said most of the
infrastructural projects that we will do, that government wants
to do, will be project that will improve the economy of Oyo
State, when we nish this bridge. Those who want to go to Agodi
Gate to buy things, or those that want to go to Dugbe, will it be
easier for them or not? (Crowd responded).
I know the struggles of those people living on the other side of this
bridge go through. When we came in, as a matter of fact, at this
time in 2019, the contractor noticeably started to work in earnest
including overnight, the contractor that had been given the work
since last year, started to lay asphalt, you had elected me then, as
Governor elect. So around 2:00 AM one day, I stopped by to ask,
-so this work you are all of a sudden doing so seriously, is it so
important that you are doing it overnight, or you want to nish
before we enter government?
What they were trying to do was show work done to reduce the
money they have embezzled. When we looked at their records
and I am saying this with all sense of responsibility. Ministry of
Works brought a milestone certicate, for work done, to enable
payment to contractor. I questioned that is this the road works that
I usually pass by every night without noticing any work being
done, that you have brought certicates for? So I asked how much
we are owing them. They said around 700 million, I then told them
that they should get all the documents from inception to date
detailing all the monies that we (the Government) have paid to
date, since we have only just gotten to ofce, to tally all the money
that the government has paid, with the corresponding percentage
of work they have done. I told them to go and bring it. By the
second day, they said, that it is the contractor that was owing us
400 million. we are still going to collect the 400 million from them,
we've not collected it but we will collect it. (crowd cheered)
So, the original contract was awarded in 2017, from Idi Ape to
Akobo Oju irin not reaching Odogbo Barracks Junction, where
they are meant to do the road to. The contractor was just playing
with the project. But let us even forget the road we said they should
do for a brief moment. The contract cost of the bridge component
of the work, was 1.464 billion (one billion four hundred and sixtyfour
million) Naira, of which 368 million naira had been paid to