Oyo-Ogbomoso Road gulps N47.5b as FG commissions Ibadan-Oyo end

The Federal Government has promised to collaborate with state governments to develop and manage federal roads within their vicinity.
Mike Onolememen, the Minister of Works, gave the assurance on Thursday while commissioning the newly constructed Ibadan-Ilorin four-lane divided highway (Route A1) Section 1 Ibadan-Oyo in Oyo State,Onolememen also disclosed that the Oyo-Ogbomosho segment is under construction at a whooping sum of N47.5 billion.
The Ogbomoso-Ilorin section had since been completed, leaving the middle segment, Oyo to Ogbomoso, for that corridor to be finally delivered.
Onolememen said the event was very important not only to the South West zone, but to the entire country.
He added: “The road is a section of route A1, one of the four North-South arterial Highways in the sense that Ibadan_Oyo-Ogbomosho-Ilorin Road is basically a corridor that links Southern and Northern parts of the country, which is very strategic in the movement of goods and services, particularly from Lagos ports and industrial complexes, to the Northern Nigeria.”
The minister recalled that the Federal Government decided to embark on the development of the road as a completely new dualisation project, using a different alignment to include the large volume of traffic and heavy commercial vehicles that ply on it.
Over the years, the road had deteriorated to a level where maintenance was no longer feasible, having outlived its design life and the road becoming very dangerous to motorists and pedestrians as well as to harness the waste of man-hours on the old road due to traffic bottle necks, particularly as a result of incessant accidents.
In his remark earlier, Governor Isiaka Ajimobi of Oyo State thanked the Federal Government for delivering finally on the road.
Represented by the Secretary of the State Government, the governor, however, made a special appeal to the Federal Ministry of Works for the the release of N18,378,141,790.27 as reimbursement to the state as money spent on construction of some federal roads in the state.
He also sought the Federal Ministry of Works’ cooperation by granting approval for the state’s application to build extra bridges across the Lagos-Ibadan Expressroad between the old Ibadan Toll gate and the Ojoo end of the road, which the state is determined to dualise and open up some strategic roads in Ibadan township to ensure free traffic within the capital city and improve the economic well-being of the people.
The project is a 43.25km dual-carriageway comprising of 13 underpasses, 12 numbers of bridges (seven of which are dual and five single), 29 numbers of reinforced concrete pipe culverts and 51,827m of lined drains