Just when Koro was being considered for the ministerial job, the National Weekender wrote: “With the failure of the likes of Wahab Dosunmu, Kofoworola Bucknor-Akerele, Adeseye Ogunlewe and Olabode George to stop Tinubu’s political tsunami in the South-West, especially in Lagos, the PDP and the Presidency critically re-examined the programme and plans of Obanikoro as regards 2015 and was convinced that he is the man capable of slowing down the Lion of Bourdillon if he cannot be out-rightly stopped.” He was therefore picked as a minister to get him closer home to effectively meet the plans of his party in 2015.

Quoting an undisclosed source, the National Weekender said Obanikoro’s plan to deliver Lagos State to the PDP would start with the employment of over 150,000 youths and sending another 100,000 abroad for various training programmes. This, it said, would assist in the PDP campaign aside the media organisations the party would set up to match what it believes is a grip on the media by the APC.

It was therefore not a surprise to those who hold this opinion when, upon his appointment by Jonathan, Obanikoro saw the need to tackle the government of Babatunde Fashola, who had hit at the Presidency for appointing a Lagosian as a junior minister despite the importance of the state in the country. One of the first things he did was to castigate Fashola for reclaiming land at the Ilubirin end of Lagos State for the purpose of development.
Ilubirin, before now, was a floating area close to the third Mainland Bridge inhabited mostly by women. The residents, mostly from the Ilaje-Ese Odo area of Ondo State, mixed freely with indigenes of Benin Republic and Togo in makeshift buildings. But when the state government decided to develop the area, it first sent the dwellers packing. It then started to sand-fill the expanse, using Julius Berger plc. That done, the state government started to erect buildings on the land, calling it the Ilubirin Foreshore Housing Estate which, it said, would have 1,254 two- and three-bedroom apartments on eight floors.

Suddenly on 2 April, Governor Fashola alerted Nigerians during a celebration to mark his 2,500 days in office that the Federal Government was thwarting his efforts at completing the housing project, which is being handled by the contracting firm of Cyrou Turnkey Builders, with a time frame of 15 months. And none other person was mentioned by the governor as the Federal Government’s tool for the alleged act order than Obanikoro.

According to Fashola, the minister had stormed the site of the project with soldiers. He said Obanikoro ordered that work on the site be stopped immediately. “Our respected first Federal Commissioner of Works during General Yakubu Gowon’s regime, Alhaji Femi Okunnu, had informed the state that the place belongs to Lagos and not Federal Government,” Fashola said. “I was informed that Senator Musiliu Obanikoro brought in soldiers to stop the housing project last weekend. Why is it now they lay claim to the place after we have sandfilled it?”

The governor did not hide his feeling that Obanikoro was plotting trouble ahead of the 2015 general elections with such posture just weeks after attaining the ministerial position. To Fashola, such action by Obanikoro was nothing less than misuse of office and the Nigerian Army by a minister who should immediately settle down to work in a country battered by security challenges. In the governor’s opinion, the PDP did not mean well for the state and residents who should be the beneficiaries of the housing project.