Omooba Dotun Babayemi, the Osun State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial candidate, while featuring on Rave FM’s Yoruba audience participatory programme tagged ‘Oro Oselu’, on Monday,11th April,2022, innocuously ignited a debate on whether the Osogbo-Iwo Road belongs to the federal or state government. For sure, it was a most unintended poser.
Responding to a question, Babayemi had listed a number of woes betiding the people of the state in the hands of the APC administration, especially the neglect of the Osogbo-Iwo Road and the accompanying sufferings being borne by those plying the road.
A caller, precisely Mr. Ismail Omipidan, the spokesman of Governor Gboyega Oyetola,disagreed and insisted that the road belongs to the Federal Government.
Babayemi who is never known to be impulsive or a rabble rousing individual, did not mention the ever-recurring pitiable state of the road just to poke some fun. Rather, he said it out of a very deep concern for the plight of the people plying the road on a daily basis
The Origin
Right from the outset, the Osogbo-Iwo-Ibadan road had always been maintained by the then Oyo State Government before it was transferred to Osun State upon its creation in 1991.
The first segment which is the Ibadan-Iwo stretch, was awarded by the military administration of David Jemibewon to Soleh Boneh Nig Ltd and was completed in 1977.The design of the road was undertaken by Abayomi Olufawo and Partners, a consulting Civil Engineering firm based in Ibadan.
However, for the Osogbo-Iwo segment, the design was transferred from Abayomi Olufawo and Partners to
Crown Agents,UK, for redesign.This, however, was never to be as the redesign work was ultimately taken over by Profen Consultants.
Thus, in 1977,TWZ Construction Company was awarded the contract by the state government at a cost of #11.5m (Eleven Million and Five Hundred Thousand Naira).
Again because TWZ Construction Company did not mobilize to the site, Oyo State Government under Chief Bola Ige, re-awarded it to Tewogbade and Sons.Tewogbade was on it untill 1987 when the company abandoned it.The contract was then re-awarded to POAT Construction Company which completed it in 1990.
Sadly, by 1991, the road started to fail.
Consequently and in order to cushion the effects of the untold hardship brought about by the failure of the road,Osun State Government swung into action by carrying out patching works in 1993 and 1994.Thereafter, maintenance of the road was handed over to Multi State Road Project II of Osun State.
Not only that, bordered by the perennial failure of the Osogbo-Iwo segment of the road,the state government in 1997, empowered Competence Engineering,an engineering firm, to investigate the causes of the problem. Failure of the firm to live up to expectations,made the Geotechnical and Structural Unit of the State Ministry of Works and Transport in the year 2000,to carry out some investigations.
In 2007, during the administration of Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola,the rehabilitation of the road was undertaken by Dekit Construction Company Ltd.
Determined to fix the road with a view to making life more bearable to the people, the state government again, commissioned Centre for Research and Development (CERAD) of the Federal University of Technology, Akure (FUTA), via a letter with reference no: DPO/O/112/23, on 24th June, 2009, to carry out geotechnical investigative studies on the road.
Aside commissioning a design of the road,the then military administration in the state had wanted the Federal Government to take over the responsibility of maintaining the road.Letters were even written to this effect.But,the fact still remains that the Federal Government did not accede to that request till date.
Even if the road does not truly belong to Osun State as someone wants to make us believe, why is the Oyetola administration commissioning a new design on the road?
Why the Presence of FG?
The presence and the current ongoing efforts of repairing the road by the Federal Government in conjunction with the state government, is just merely an intervention which is allowed.After all, even states construct roads for local governments.
Federal Government cannot and does not award such a contract piecemeal as it is the case of Osogbo-Iwo Road. If anybody cares to know,the current repairs of Osogbo-Iwo Road, was awarded to four different contractors.
In fact, the Federal Roads Maintenance Agency(FERMA),a Federal Government agency saddled with the responsibility of maintaining federal roads, has stated categorically that the road in question belongs to the state and not Federal Government.
In one of its tweets on 27th December,2018,while responding to Save-Our-Souls pleas by @ hasZan9,@toluogulesi and two others, the agency said the road was the property of Osun.
These concerned individuals had lamented in their tweets that the road was terribly bad; stressing,”Ibadan-Iwo-Osogbo, is the worst road in the whole southwest.@FMPWH should please help us out.We need reconstruction and not rehabilitation”
Replying through its official handle:@FedRoadsNGR,FERMA affirmed that; “This road is owned by @StateofOsun.But as partners,we can assure the public that repairs of the road,is of priority to Governments at all levels.Thank you”
Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola,the immediate past Governor of the state, a number of times, promised the people of Iwo that his government would fix the road.This was never to be.
Sometimes in March, 2000, when the then President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, was on a visit to Osun State, Chief Bisi Akande, who was the governor at that time, pleaded with him (Obasanjo) to help fix the Osogbo-Iwo road through the federal purse, a request the erstwhile country’s helmsman jovially turned down.
Simply speaking, Osogbo-Iwo Road is the baby of Osun State Government.Babayemi has undertaken a critical study and analysis of the state and its people and will not,under whatever guise, play to the gallery.It’s not even his wont to do.
The fact that he has acquainted himself with the needed information and felt needs of the people of the state, shows how prepared he is to govern Osun.
Obviously, Babayemi knows quite well that overseeing the affairs of a state like Osun, is not supposed to be a stroll in the garden; for it requires seriousness,determination and tenacity of purpose and, of course,fiscal discipline.The governorship hopeful is imbued with all these and many more.
So one expects that the government or any of its agents to be circumspect by always being armed with necessary details on different subject matters that relate to the state and its people before coming to the public space to churn out information that could be misleading.
More importantly,facts and figures involved in the Osogbo-Iwo-Ibadan routes,are there at their beck and call, especially in the government archives; unless someone, somewhere, chooses to be perfunctory about it.
From the Research Department, Omooba Dotun Babayemi Campaign Organization
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