Apparently miffed by the spate of infrastructure decay, discriminatory development and neglect of Akute/Ajuwon communities, an NGO, Hope Movement Group (HMG) has called on Ogun Government for a redress.
The HMG, led by its Convener, Mr Olalekan Talabi, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday decried the state of infrastructure within the two border communities.
NAN reports that the communities which are home to about 300, 000 people are located on the borders of Lagos and Ogun, and most of their inhabitants work in Lagos.
The communities are bordered by the popular Berger, the first community on getting to Lagos State soil and they are generally regarded as “Second Lagos’’.
A check on the affected communities, however, shows visibly the lack of infrastructural development save the link road to Lagos State which has been waning for three years now.
Talabi told NAN that the spate of neglect of the affected communities was dated back to 30 years and therefore called for government immediate attention.
“We are not happy with the way government is treating us, most of the infrastructure in our communities are dilapidated because they are obsolete.
“The infrastructure, mainly the roads, but more than that, we lack public schools in these communities; we have only three community schools serving about 300,000 people.
“The three schools were reduced to two when the ongoing construction of Akute/Alagbole road by the state government was initiated and this made the two schools over crowded.
“Each classroom in the schools was demarcated to accommodate more students and in some instances there are about 200 students packed in a class; this is disturbing,’’ he said.
Talabi said that though the link road being constructed by the Ogun Government was a laudable one, yet, it had created untold hardship to the road users because of the absence of alternative routes.
“Although we commend the government on the Akute/Alagbole road, yet the road has created a lot of fatality because it lacks access roads to serve as alternative route for the commuters.
“The contractor handling the road did not create access road which vehicles can navigate through; there is only a narrow path for the heavy vehicular movement.
“There should have been a good palliative measure like an alternative route for the motorists, the other inner roads are so bad and not motorable this has caused great pains to us.
“The ongoing construction on the road has led to a high number of fatalities, including pregnant women that lost their lives on the road recently,’’ he said.
Talabi also said that the communities neglected by the government if well taken care of, could be a gold mine for government’s efforts at increasing its internal revenue generation.
“The problem we have is the tag of being a border town; it is true that most of us living here are Lagos workers, but we can still provide the state more revenues.
“The fact that we are border towns should not stop the government from providing us the necessary amenities and then compel us to pay tax which we will gladly do.
“In a situation where we do everything by ourselves, we provide our own water, we build our roads and we send our children to private schools at our expense, so what else?
“If government can provide the necessary facilities to ease our burdens, then we pay our tax and other bills and for communities that have about 300,000 people imagine the revenue that would be generated,’’ he said.
The Deputy Director of HMG, Mr Olaiya Kikiowo, said he had been living in the community for about 30 years, yet, nothing has changed in the provision of infrastructure to the community.
“Living here for more than 30 years now, I have yet to see any improvement in the infrastructure in the community. The same road that served about 10,000 now serves 300,000 inhabitants.
“The same transformer servicing 1,000 people is now serving close to 10,000 people and the transformer always trip off whenever there is heavy load on it.
“We also have the issue of land grabbers called “Omo Onile’’ that are constantly harassing us, there many troubles in this community. The inner roads are in bad shape.
“Our roads are almost impassable during rainy season, bad enough, the local government council, Ifo Local Government is not helping matters, they have no presence here,’’ he said.
A resident, Mr Sunday Musa, said that in spite of all the entreaties to the Ifo Local Government Council on the spate of the infrastructure, no response came from the council save only the election campaigns.
“Imagine no functional government hospital, roads and schools, what can government lay claim to in these communities? We are practicably neglected; even the road that was provided us was abandoned.
“The government just returned to the road sometimes ago after many hue and cries. We are not happy with the way government has been treating us, yet they will come for campaign.
“We have been sidelined in so many ways; we therefore call on government to consider increasing its presence in our communities so that they can gain our trust during election,’’ he said.