Osun APC cautions Olubadan Ladoja over Adeleke’s flyover projects

By Ayorinde Oluokun

The Osun APC Governorship Campaign Council has cautioned Olubadan of Ibadanland, Oba Rasheed Adewolu Ladoja, against what he described as attempt to use his revered name, integrity and professional reputation to lend credibility to poorly executed flyover projects by the state government.

The APC Campaign Council said this while welcoming Oba Ladoja to Osogbo for the commissioning of the LAMECO and Okefia flyovers scheduled for commissioning today in Osogbo, Osun State today, Wednesday, July 1.

But the APC Campaign Council, in a statement signed by its Head of the Media and Publicity Committee, Oluremi Omowaiye, said the two flyovers to be commissioned by Olubadan were constructed by Kimzee Global Investment and A’scorj Nigeria Limited respectively, two companies, which, according to it, has no known history or expertise in road and bridge construction.

The APC Campaign Council described the two projects as “S’agbe L’oju Yoyo Flyovers,” (substandard) as the two companies, – Kimzee Global Investment and A’scorj Limited, according to it, are known primarily for providing skills acquisition, arts and craft training to youths as well as estate agency respectively.

The APC Campaign Council claimed several professional engineers raised serious complaints over what they described as obvious technical and structural deficiencies during the construction of the LAMECO and Okefia flyovers

It however said the concerns were allegedly ignored by the contractors and the supervising authorities even after visual monitoring and non-destructive testing (NDT) was carried out to assess some structural defects

The APC Campaign Council further alleged that the Okefia flyover exhibited signs of caving in during construction before the affected portions were plastered with cement, a development which, according to it, heightened public concerns about the structural integrity of the project.

The Council stated that its decision to alert the Olubadan was informed solely by the immense respect the Osun APC has for the highly revered traditional ruler and his distinguished professional career.

It said it would be unfortunate if the outgoing administration in Osun State were to exploit the monarch’s presence to give legitimacy to projects that continue to attract technical concerns and public scrutiny.

“The Olubadan is a highly respected monarch and an accomplished professional whose reputation has been built over decades. We consider it necessary to place these concerns before Kabiyesi so that his good name will not be used to validate projects that many professionals believe fall short of acceptable global engineering standards,” the statement said.

The Council also noted that, “The two projects were self-serving: they came about because some people wanted to line their pockets with people’s money. The flyovers were needless considering the light volume of traffic on the two roads. The government did not conduct traffic counts before embarking on such white elephant projects that came at a highly inflated cost to government. Also, we have it on good authority that some required structural and materials tests for the project were not even conducted, as it is the standard.”

The APC Council ALSO accused the administration of Governor Ademola Adeleke of establishing what it described as a disturbing pattern of awarding multi-billion-naira public infrastructure contracts to companies whose core businesses have no relationship with the projects assigned to them.

It pointed out that the administration awarded the ₦100 billion Ede Airport project to an interior decoration company SHOWIE-TEE GLOBAL SERVICES LTD.