As a Yoruba person and an indigene of Ibadan the Oyo State capital, I have come to realise that being from a place and having links with a place are totally different.
This is the ongoing situation in Oyo State where certain people have hijacked the excellent dreams and aspirations of the governor of Oyo state, ‘Seyi Makinde, to develop the State and make it the headquarters of Agriculture in Nigeria. I call it dreams and aspirations because the governor we all know intends to leave a lasting legacy by putting infrastructure in place that will outlive his government and will be there for many years to come. However, it appears certain people in the governor’s inner circle have a different idea.
Awolowo, we know. A man that died in 1987, and was last in government around 1975, yet his policies are still being replicated today. As we all know, Fasola Farm Settlement is one of the many great ideas that were birthed by the great Awo, and some of the buildings constructed close to 70 years ago are still standing today.
Back to our current situation, which is the remodelling, renovation or reconstruction work that started around June 2021.
So basically, we have had weather damage 3 years in a row. The question now is “how come some of these new structures in the Fasola Industrial hub cannot withstand heavy rainfall?”.
A brief summary of how we got here. On the 11th June 2021, Governor Seyi makinde said ‘the Fasola Industrial Hub will be constructed by Brains and Hammers and it is the first of nine integrated agro-industrial parks that will be built across the state by the Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA)’ Oyo flags-off 1,200-hectare agro-industrial hub project – New Telegraph (newtelegraphng.com). The fund, Makinde had said, will come from N7.6 billion loan sourced from the CBN in 2017 under the Commercial Agriculture Credit Scheme (CACs) to the provision of infrastructure required for agro-industrial activities on the moribund farm settlements. Makinde: Why I Am Spending 7.6bnLoan On Farm Settlements – InsideOyo.com
Brians and Hammers is a reputable construction company that has a record of building several housing estates across Nigeria. So why the poor quality of work in Fasola? It has been alleged that sub-contractors or nominated sub-contractors were used mainly to do the work in Fasola Farm Settlement. It was further alleged that a certain non indigene, a close associate of the governor of Edo State, was the one who nominated many of the sub-contractors for the project. The man’s former employee who asked to remain anonymous told our this writer that at the height of the construction work in Fasola, his boss’ office, a call centre, was the ‘go to’ location by majority of the sub-contractors. The same former employee also alleges that a top agric agency boss was a frequent visitor to the office, located in the Ikolaba area of Ibadan North.
The former employee also gave a list of companies which are allegedly recycled over and over again when bidding for contracts in Oyo State, the employee alleged that the evidence is at the Due Process office where all these companies have been submitted at one time or the other. It is claimed that the organisational structure of the company will show that the same set of staff were recorded as working for multiple companies. A prominent name that would come up in many of the company organisational structures is the man’s former personal assistant, a woman, currently residing in the UK. According to the former staff, many others have left in frustration. This includes this Edo man’s childhood friend whose departure caused serious panic at the time.
The following are companies being used to directly secure contracts or to pad the bidding process:
At this point, it is important to revisit the issue of ‘government relations monthly payment’ of approximately 5 Million naira allegedly paid in tranches to this man’s company account and another from early to mid 2021. There is an urgent need to investigate this allegation as if this is true this could run into hundreds of millions of Naira when we include the over 100 million Naira allegedly paid to another company within the same period. The question here is this, did these alleged payments impact on the funds of the contractors? And how did this affect the quality of work done?
We call on all anti corruption agencies to please investigate this project. Oyo State’s commonwealth should not be squandered. If Awolowo can construct building that can last close to 70 years, we cannot replace such quality with inferior structures that cannot withstand rainfall.
Perimeter fence in Fashola is allegedly incomplete
Awe – Youth Agribusiness Incubation Park – We hope buildings destroyed by the rainfall has been fixed.
OYSADA headquaters in Saki – it was promised that OYSADA will move all operations there after full renovation which cost hundreds of million of Naira. ‘What happen with this move? Who is using the lawn tennis cout in Saki?