Press statement
The Socialist Party of Nigeria
(SPN), Ifo LGA, hereby calls the attention of the Ogun State government to the
deplorable condition of roads in Agbado/Oke Aro LCDA. We make this clarion call
because we believe the situation is dire especially as the raining season
beckons.
We challenge the working masses
and youth of Agbado/Oke Aro LCDA not to continue to watch as the condition of
roads and other basic amenities continue to worsen. There is an urgent need to
build a popular campaign through which regular activities like protests and
demonstrations can be organized to ply pressure on government and elected
representatives to act. Without this kind of approach, very little would be
achieved as the long fruitless years of quiet lobbying of politicians have
shown.
The roads in the LCDA are often
flooded once it rains with dire implications for residents and school children.
Last year, a number of children drowned in flood water in different parts of
the area. On Tuesday 23rd April 2019, many residents of Olambe, Adiyan and
other areas were stranded for hours when rising flood water cut off access road
to their communities. Without a set of emergency measures including speedy
completion of all on-going road and bridge projects, construction of drainage
and flood water outlets and regular repair and maintenance of all road
networks, certain disaster beckons in the area.
Aside the fact that a majority of
the road networks in the area are unconstructed and untarred such that they
have become unmotorable, the few road and overhead bridge projects began by the
state government years ago are in different stages of non-completion. The
contractors while abandoning the project sites for months now also failed to
provide alternative routes for easy passage of vehicles. This had further
compounded the woes of the people living in the communities within the LCDA.
For instance, the access road under the uncompleted overhead bridge linking
Olambe to Giwa regularly turns to a death trap once it rains. This is because
of the non-completion of the bridge and the failure of the contractors to
strengthen the small bridge which the communities built decades back to provide
passage over the stream which passes underneath but which has now become too
weak to handle the heavy vehicular traffic that passes daily.
We insist that the core
responsibility of government is provision of public infrastructures and basic
amenities to ensure a better living standard for citizens. Unfortunately, the
Ibikunle Amosun-led Ogun State government has consistently shirked its
responsibility to the people of the area not only in terms of road
infrastructure but also provision of other basic amenities like public
education and healthcare. We hereby demand immediate action to begin to address
the deplorable condition of road infrastructures in the area.
As far as we are concerned in the
SPN, we firmly believe that the Ogun State government has the resources to
address the problem of road infrastructure in the area but for capitalist
greed. For instance, on the basis of the fraudulent contract system, enormous
resources have been wasted on the uncompleted road and bridge projects with
very little to show for it. This is because the contract system is not an
effective and cost-saving measure to provide public infrastructure, rather it
is actually a drain pipe to funnel public funds into private pockets. This is
why the SPN often argues for public works programme under democratic workers
control as the most effective and cost-saving means to provide public
infrastructures.
An SPN government would not only
utilize public works programme to ensure provision of public infrastructures,
it would also nationalize under workers democratic control the extractive,
steel and oil industries from which the major materials needed for road
construction are sourced. So far these industries continue to be dominated by
private interests, it would be impossible to fully address the infrastructure
deficit plaguing Ogun state and Nigeria as a whole. This if linked with the
public ownership of other key sectors of the economy and under a government of
workers and the poor can open the way for full utilization of Nigeria’s immense
wealth and resources to transform the country.
Comrade Ayo Ajakaye Comrade
Fatai Umoron
Chairperson Secretary
