Former Head of State and Presidential Aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, Major General (Rtd.) Mohammadu Buhari has applauded the achievements of Governor Adams Oshiomole in Edo State.
Buhari commended the Governor while inaugurating the newly reconstructed six-lane Airport Road and the remodelled Imaguero College, in Benin City on Saturday.
He said “let me express my appreciation to the governor for the great work he has done in this state and also to express my delight and congratulate the people of Edo State for the massive support given to Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.
“I am very grateful and appreciate your success. By setting the idea of infrastructural development and putting the people first in all your policies, till the end of time, the people of Edo State will never forget you, I congratulate you for your ideas and all.”
While narrating how he got the Project approved, Governor Oshiomole said “We thought that looking at all the projects we have in the state, the Airport Road is the flagship. It took the intervention of our paramount traditional ruler, the Oba of Benin who had to do a letter to the then Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Hon, Zakawanu Garuba at a time when PDP had two-third members of the House.
“They had bluntly refused the budgetary allocation that was provided for in the appropriation of 2009 which provided for the construction of this road along with other roads construction in Benin City. This road was part of the budget I was directed to bring down to Abuja by the leader of PDP who is currently the Chairman of their Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih
“I was asked to take the budget up to his sitting room and the then Speaker of the House was seated along with other principal officers of the House and I was asked to go through the budget page by page.
“When the chief saw the allocation to Benin roads, he asked me why you should devote so much resources to Benin roads. I thought it was an honest question and I attempted an honest reply.
“I said to him sir, given the resource profile of Edo State and all that we need to do, I am convinced that if we are going to make progress with our lean resources, we do not want to spread our resources so thinly everywhere such that we make no impact anywhere.
“Given the crisis in Benin in terms of erosion, we needed to make huge investments on Benin roads and drainage and he said to me, no, reduce the budget on all the roads in Benin City by 50 per cent and redistribute it into recurrent expenditure. Whereas our budget was designed to achieve a ratio of 65 for capital and 35 per cent for recurrent, by the time chief was done, the budget had been revised in favour of recurrent.
“What was actually left for Airport Road was not enough to mobilise any serious contractor to site. Invariably, the intervention was meant not to construct the Airport Road along with all other roads in Benin City”.
“Over time, the ratio of the House changed and APC produced the leadership of the House. We then subsequently re-ordered our budget to reflect the priority of Edo State and this road became one of those flagship projects.”
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