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In line with the arrangement of Governor Rauf Aregbesola-led administration of Osun State to ensure access and mobility in the rural areas, indications have emerged that all arrangements have been nearly completed, for the partnership between Osun State government, the World Bank and French Development Agency on the project.
The indications emerged in Osogbo, the state capital last Wednesday, when the team from the World Bank and the French Development Agency on the Road Access Mobility Projects (RAMP) mission to Nigeria visited the governor.
Explaining the rationale behind the project, the World Bank Head of RAMP team, Mr. Nicolas Pelter, said that Osun was among the four states singled out for the projects, saying that, even among the four states, the state has been taking the lead in the programme.
He stated that the operation would be financed with $315 million, with $195 million coming from the World Bank and $120 million from the French Development Agency.
The World Bank official noted that Osun State was chosen as one of the benefiting states due to the strategies it had been exploring in the area of agriculture and rural access mobility, saying that the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Programme (OREAP) would go a long in assisting the project.
Revealing that the state was chosen due to its potentials and good governance traits, he said that the state had demonstrated that it deserves to benefit from the 500 kilometres rural access mobility project, as it had again launched pivot for road maintenance in the state.
Responding, Aregbesola stated that the agricultural programme of his administration was targeted at ensuring that hunger and food shortage is banished from the state and use it to ensure that wealth is created for the people of the state.
The governor, who applauded the World Bank and the French Development Agency, for identifying access and mobility as the greatest challenge to agricultural production in the state, said, "majority of our people live in rural areas are farmers and access to their community is a challenge, not to talk of bringing their farm produce to markets".
"We are happy with your support and commend you, but what we need requires national intervention, because what you are supporting us with is small to the need of the country", he stated.
Speaking on the maintenance of the roads after the projects might have been completed, the governor said, "don't even bother about maintenance. Whatever support you want to give us, we will take, but we want to give you an assurance that maintenance is our second nature as an administration".
He hinted that part of the jobs of the 20,000 volunteers of Osun Youths Empowerment Scheme (OYES) was to engage in social and community work, which includes vegetation control on all roads, both tarred and un-tarred in the state.
To make the vegetation control, which he described as one of the greatest aspects of road maintenance easier for the volunteers, the governor said that, "we have placed an order for 600 Standing Moers for the use of the volunteers, because we feel it will be better and easier than the traditional method of doing the vegetation control".
Osun Defender