Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, has warned the residents against land speculation, saying his administration would continue to prioritise infrastructure development to enhance growth and productivity in the state.
The governor stated this at the funeral and thanksgiving service in honour of the mother of Bishop Francis Wale Oke, the late Mama Elizabeth Areola Abeo Oke (Mama Alaadun), held at the James Oke Memorial Anglican Church, Kasumu village, Ibadan.
Makinde promised to extend the ongoing road construction in Kasumu Village to Egbeda road through Owobaale-Erunmu, where the state government plans to convert the moribund Erunmu Dry Port to a container terminal, all the way to Lalupon.
The governor warned residents of Kasumu and other areas in the area to be wary of land grabbers and also avoid selling their lands as the corridor would soon experience massive economic transformation as a result of the road project and the ongoing Ibadan Circular Road project being developed around the axis.
He said: “Let me say it again that those who have landed properties here should not sell them. Not only those around Kasumu side but also Owobaalé axis. Also, the location before we get to the Infectious Disease Centre at Olodo, that is the location we were planning to site the Dry Port before we thought of converting it to a container terminal.
“It would still be on the old narrow gauge and if you go further up, we have the Circular Road, which is also hitting this place. This road would hit the other one and the other one by Bishop Wale Oke, I am standing on the altar of God to say that I will finish that road before the end of my tenure.’’
In his sermon, the Diocesan Bishop of Ibadan North Diocese, Rt. Reverend Williams Aladekugbe, charged people not to see death as a bad thing but a transition of believers to a place of peaceful rest and everlasting life.