Buhari threatened Ekiti, Ondo over road project – Fayemi

The Governor of Ekiti State, Kayode Fayemi, has stated that the Federal Government threatened the state and Ondo State over the Akure-Ado Ekiti road project.

Fayemi was reacting to the visit of the Minister of State for Transportation, Prince Ademola Adegoroye, to the Minister for Works and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola, concerning the project.

Following the visit, Adegoroye had urged Fashola to expedite action on the commencement of the Akure-Ado Ekiti Expressway dualisation project.

In a statement made available to The PUNCH on Tuesday, Fayemi noted that the FG had refused to cede the road project to the affected states.

He said, “I have spent the last three years on the subject of this road. I finally got them to award the dualisation in November 2019 at the cost of N30b. To date, the contractor has only received N2b.

“I then got money from the AfDB for the road through Adesina, and the FG refused to cede the road to Ondo and Ekiti State and threatened us 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, got them to put in Sukuk money but the contractor has not been able to access this.

“We are now pursuing NNPC to include the road in their new tax credit roads they are funding, but we are still on it.

“There’s no month Fashola and I do not speak about this road for the past three years. It has even caused friction between the two of us. If we had been given clearance to do the road and toll it, we offered to do that, but the FG refused.

I wish Demola luck on his new venture. Senator Alasoadura did the same and even cried at FEC on account of the road. Maybe he will succeed where we have not.”