With Our New Airport We’ve Opened Ogun State To The World – Gov. Abiodun

​

Governor Dapo Abiodun, in this interview speaks on his achievements as Ogun State governor in the last four and a half years, and the latest initiatives and viable infrastructure he has brought to Ogun State, particularly the new airport. TOMI FALADE brings Excerpts:

 What would you consider as your greatest achievement so far, in line with your vision for Ogun State?

As it stands today and without doubt, Ogun State has become an investment destination of choice in Nigeria, and that is made possible because of our creative policy of exploring the inherent com­parative advantage of our geographical location as the only neighbour that Lagos State has.

Lagos State is the fifth largest econ­omy on the continent of Africa. It re­mains the economic capital of Nigeria and financial nerve centre, and being the only neighbour Lagos State has, we are what I would describe as the New Jersey of Nigeria. What New Jersey is to New York is what Ogun State is to Lagos State. So, we represent the overflow of Lagos. Ogun State is 16,000 square kilometres in size. We are about four times the size of Lagos State; we have an expansive land size. Also, you can’t go to any part of the country without going through Ogun State, either by land or sea or air. So, that in itself represents our comparative ad­vantage over other states.

We are also a neighbour to the sub-Af­rican region through the Republic of Be­nin. Today, you would find out that there are lot of companies, industries, manu­facturers that have been in Ogun State for years. And the primary reason for that is, one, Lagos State houses the busiest air­port and seaports. They are able to bring their raw materials in from Lagos to Ogun State, process it, distribute back to Lagos or distribute to the hinterlands. But beyond that, we also enjoy a criss-cross of natural gas pipelines. So, beyond the convenience of being close to the busiest seaport and the financial capital, indus­tries have found their home here because they have access to power through natu­ral gas. So, as an administration, when we came on board, we looked at all these factors and decided to leverage these. Our vision encapsulates a focused and qualitative governance while creating an enabling environment for Public-Private Partnership (PPP), which we believe is very fundamental to economic growth of the state and the individual prosperity of our people.

How friendly is Ogun to investors and invest­ments?

We are conscious about creating an enabling environment for people to come and work, live, invest and play, so, we decided to have what we regard as our implementation pillar called ISEYA. I for Infrastructure, S for Security and Social Welfare, E for Education, Y for Youth Em­powerment and Job Creation and A for Agriculture. Through these developmen­tal pillars, we have begun to implement our vision. Take for instance, in the area of infrastructure, we took cognisance of the need to maximise our proximity to Lagos, and so far, we have construct­ed over 400 kilometres of highways. Of these 400 kilometres of highways, we pri­oritise the highways that connect us with neighbouring states, particularly Lagos. Today, four years and few months into our tenure, you can travel between Lagos and Ogun States and it will take you less than an hour. When we assumed office, it would take you probably two or three hours or even more. So, more people are now coming to Ogun State to live, work, hold conferences and to play because we are easily accessible. There are several narratives in the media about your transportation policy and pattern of imple­mentation, can you explain to us what you have done so far in this sector?

After we assumed office, we decided it was necessary to have a transportation masterplan as we considered transpor­tation as a key enabler for our various industries to thrive. We now have what we call a multimodal masterplan. This masterplan defined the connection be­tween roads, rail and air transportation. We have since begun the implementa­tion four years and few months down the road. We have built a world class airport in Ogun State. This airport story started since 2006 when it was licensed as an airport and approved for the state; it remained what we call a power-point airport. However, after our masterplan, we decided that we must be adequately informed as to where the airport should be located and from all indications, the airport was located where it was original­ly approved, somewhere in Ikenne Local Government between Ilishan and Iperu.

Why do you feel this is the best location?

That location represents the cen­tre-point of Ogun State. It is easily acces­sible and joined by two major highways: Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sag­amu-Benin Expressway. It is co-located in our special Agro-Processing zone. And thus, we call that airport location area our Aerotropolis. That airport was built within two years. The first flight landed sometime last year. The airport will com­mence commercial operations sometime before the end of this year. It is built with cargo airport and passenger airport, but it is an international airport. It is built to be a truly International Airport, in line with global best practices. It is the airport that has the longest runway in Nigeria. Of course, the whole idea of co-location of this airport is predicated on the special Agro-Processing zone in such that all the entire value chains of agro-produce that would be occurring in that zone and raw materials are coming from different plan­tations that we have in Ogun State, be it cassava, be it cashew, be it oil palm, be it rubber, be it cotton and so many others are coming to the special agro-processing zone and are being processed, including those that need to be air-freighted in that airport to the rest of the world.