By Emmanuel Elebeke

The people of Lagos East Senatorial District, including traditional rulers gathered in Ikorodu Township Hall at the weekend where Governor Babatunde Fashola gave an account of his administration  for the past 1,900 days in office.

The hall which was filled to capacity with the traditional rulers, youths, men and women all dressed in different attires to welcome the governor could hardly contain the mammoth crowd.

Addressing the audience, the governor represented by the state commissioner for works, Mr. Olufemi Hamsat, an engineer, said “we are here to let the people know  what we have done and are doing to transform Lagos into a model mega city  in Africa. And we felt that the only way we can do this is by  building  democratic values and the infrastructure base of the state.”

Fashola added that his administration had achieved a lot in the last 1,900 days in office in the area of infrastructure development, job creation, education, health, environmental cleanliness  and human capacity  building.

In the area of housing, he said that his administration in order to provide quality and affordable homes for the teeming population of Lagosians had embarked  on low cost houses, encouraging home ownership financing through mortgage, while the government had put in place policies that would enhance conducive environment required for proactive public private partnership in the delivery process.

Among these are completion and commissioning of  256 housing units Oba Adeboruwa Housing Estate, Igbogbo, Ikorodu;  336 housing units of Sir Michael Otedola Housing Estate, Odoragunshin; 88 housing units of Millenium Housing  Scheme, Gbagada and presented Sub-Lease Title Documents to 1,000 house owners among others.

In the area of infrastructure development, he said that the administration had embarked on massive construction and modernization of roads and bridges, including provision of street lights in virtually all the local government and local council development areas of the the state which involves a total of  37 road projects of about 45.545 kilometers completed and about 54 roads of  42.429 kilometers ongoing.

Meanwhile,  the governor noted that  the administration had awarded a contract  for expansion of Ojota-Ikorodu road to a Chinese company. According to him, this was part of his administration’s efforts to decongest the traffic on the road to alleviate the suffering of the people.

The contract, which comes in three phases  will cost the sum of N29 billion and will comprise construction of nine pedestrian bridges and a modernized Bus Rapid Transit route from Ojota to Ikorodu.

He further stated that each BRT bus terminal will be expanded to accommodate four buses to allow buses on the express easy passage to their destinations.

He also revealed that the administration was thinking on constructing an alternative road from Ojodu Berger to Ikorodu, which he said would  gulp about N60 billion.