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By Johnbosco Agbakwuru

GOVERNOR Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State, weekend, said that when citizens begin to live in fear in their country or state, it will have an adverse effect on the economy of the country.

The Governor also said that there was the need to provide adequate security at the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, which he said is the busiest highway in the country and very important to the economy of the country.

Speaking with State House correspondents after the Presidential Policy Retreat at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Governor Abiodun said, “The minute people begin to leave in fear, the minute people begin to have that foreboding fear that something may happen their way, it would kill the economy of the state and the country.

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“I mentioned to them (at the retreat) that only last night (Wednesday) there was a kidnap situation on Lagos-Ibadan expressway, and in the morning of Thursday on my way to this conference, there was an attempt to kidnap four people, they kidnapped two and two escaped.

“That Lagos-Ibadan expressway is the busiest highway in this country, not only that it is so important to the economy of my state, Lagos State and the entire country.

“How do we say we are creating an enabling environment for a public-private partnership when people cannot move freely from Lagos-to Ogun hinterland without the fear of being kidnapped.

“We spoke about road infrastructure, different funding mechanism in agriculture and we spoke about healthcare. There was the emphasis that states should take ownership of healthcare and agriculture.

“The former Prime Minister of Ethiopia Hailemariam Desalegn Boshe shared with us the Ethiopian’s model which to us was a complete contrast of the Brazilian model.

“The Brazilian’s model encouraged farm settlements but the Ethiopian model was a complete contrast to the Brazilian mode. The Ethiopian model was more like the Asian model where you encourage small farmers, youth and graduates, give them ownership of farms and you have what it’s called farmers trainees.

“It was such an insightful opportunity. I think that the conclusions of the last forty-eight hours should be adopted (I don’t see any reason why it should not be adopted) because the President recapped everything and gave out commitment to ensuring the implementation.

“Another thing is this idea of the delivery unit. We in Ogun State have begun a lot of reforms part of its is setting up of Ogun State investment office, a PPP.

” These are things that indeed give comfort to the private sector that you are ready for business. But beyond having these laudable ideas and trying to implement them you must ensure that you are able to measure the performances.

“There is what we call the Global Government Delivery Unit. But today what I am taking away from here is that we should not only have government delivery unit but agriculture delivery unit, healthcare, infrastructure delivery unit headed by someone who is very competent either at ministerial level at the federal or at the state level, at the Commissioner level who would report to the Commander-In-Chief or governor. This way you will be able to measure your efforts and implementation.”

Giving more details on his take away from the retreat, the Ogun State Governor said,” I think for me as a baby governor this experience is a very exciting one coming from what we had – KPMG, McKinzey, NESG, fellow governors and so many people who all came together particularly with the input of our national chairman and we all deliberated on so many issues all geared towards moving Nigeria forward in the right direction.

“It’s been a very exciting opportunity. We talked about increasing the ranking of Nigeria on the global Ease of Doing Business Index which basically shapes perspective and the willingness of anyone to come and invest in Nigeria.

“We talked about affordable housing in Nigeria, we talked about how to achieve that. A lot of time was spent on the disposable income of our citizenry and how did they save to own a home.

“So, consequently we spoke about affordable loans – how do we we access loan that would be affordable not loans at 18 percent. We spoke about security particularly we spend time discussing about security.

“I am sure you are aware that we the governors of the South West have gotten together and we are discussing the issue seriously.

“Graciously one of our members from the private sector suggested a national security trust funding mechanism which requires that private sector puts together considerable amount of money and also the federal government would match that fund and that would be managed by the private sector.

“It’s something similar to what Lagos State has in place with all the governors, it’s something that accountability would be put in place. So we spent a lot of time on security because security is very important and I recall that I mentioned the fact that for me and Lagos, Ogun stands to benefit from everything that Lagos cannot provide.

“We are there to provide what Lagos can not afford to have and that is why we are called the Gateway State. We are the gateway to at least four states and we are also bordered to another country.”

Vanguard

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