Afenifere hails Tinubu's road infrastructure
The Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has hailed President Bola Tinubu administration’s commitment to implementing several
Infrastructure and roads that have a direct impact on the people.
The group said that the Lagos -Calabar Coastal Highway initiated by President Tinubu is a monumental project that would ensure not only connectivity but also a new era of infrastructural development in the Niger Delta.
Speaking to reporters at the Akure Airport, Ondo State yesterday, its General Secretary , Sola Ebiseni, appreciated the president for taking a bold step in beginning the first phase of the project.
“I personally notice some monumental initiatives, particularly in the area of road infrastructural development. Take the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, for instance.
“We have archival records that the road was proposed around 1900 when the Ilaje coastal territory of the present Ondo State was still part of Lagos Colony. There was already a telegraphic line which connected Lagos through Ilaje to Warri along the Atlantic corridor.
“The road was designed in alignment with the telegraphic route to link Lagos Colony with the Southern Protectorate which headquarters was then incidentally at Calabar,” he said.
Ebeseeni recalled that an agreement to link the road was reached in 1900 when Sir William Macgregor, Governor of Lagos Colony, was on tour of Ilaje, the eastern boundary of the colony up to around the Benin River in Warri Division.
“The document was later signed on the 12th January 1904 between Sir Macgregor and Sir Wyndham Roseberry of Southern Protectorate.
“President Tinubu has taken such a bold step in launching this historic road project which, if faithfully implemented, would be the most monumental, particularly in the Niger Delta.”
He urged President Tinubu to allow the road to follow the coastline of Ilaje in Ondo State aside from the coastal route of Lagos.
On the crisis rocking the group, Ebeseeni said the two factions of the late Ayo Adebanjo and Pa Reuben Fasoranti have what it takes to come together.
According to him, Afenifere is a welfarist socio-political organisation with an ideological stance that had been maintained since 1951 with an unambiguous position on national issues.
“At critical times in our national life in the Action Group, UPN, SDP/NADECO, AD, AD/APP and presently, there has been contestations on ideological ground which has always been resolved according to Awolowo on the interplay of thesis and antithesis.
“The current disagreement is not so deep in my view. It is between strict adherence to its historical socio-political character of Awolowo political world view and the new romance with being a Yoruba socio-cultural organisation of all-comers.
“No viable organisation, including political parties, is spared the bug of centrifugal forces today in our country. The new leader has what it takes to navigate the mines and bring all together,” Ebiseeni said.
