Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said he wished the minister of state for transportation, Prince Ademola Adegoroye luck on fixing the abandoned Ikerre/Akure Road.
Reacting to the issue of the road dualisation project, which Adegoroye raised when he visited the minister of works and housing, Mr Babatunde Fashola, in his office in Abuja recently, Governor Fayemi said he had made several efforts on fixing the abandoned road, adding that now that the minister had ventured into looking at the possibility of continuing the project, he wished him luck.
Fayemi said, “I wish Prince Adegoroye luck on his new venture. A former minister of state for the Niger Delta, Senator Tayo Alasoadura, did the same and even cried at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on account of the road. Maybe, he will succeed where we have not.
“I have spent the last three years on the subject of this road. Finally got them to award the dualisation in November 2019 at the cost of N30 billion. To date, the contractor has only received N2 billion. I then got money from the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the road through Dr Akinwumi Adesina, the federal government refused to cede the road to Ondo and Ekiti States and threatened us that there will be no refund if we went ahead and tampered with their road. In the end, we transferred the money to them and even helped them follow up with AfDB.
“Up till now, they can’t access the money because they have refused to follow AfDB procurement standards. After that, I got them to put in Sukuk money but the contractor has not been able to access this.
We are now pursuing the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) to include the road in their new tax credit roads they are funding but we are still on it,’’ he said.
