The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) Ogun State Chapter on Wednesday embarked on a protest along Lagos- Abeokuta expressway, to show their grievances over the deplorable condition of the road.
Penpushing reports that, the workers who occupied the road in large number declared that, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola is an enemy of Ogun State,and declared him persona non grata, accusing him of deceiving residents about plan to reconstruct the collapsed portions of the Sango road but nothing was done.
The workers joined by and residents of the affected towns carried placards with various inscriptions such as ‘Enough of bad governance,’ ‘Dapo Abiodun, let us enjoy the dividends of democracy in Ogun,’ ‘Dapo, this suffering is too much,’ ‘Hear our cries, Ogun people are suffering,’ ‘Dapo repair our roads, it is our right,’ among others.
Penpushing further reports that, Chairman of the congress, Comrade Emmanuel Bankole while speaking disclosed that, the workers initial plan was to shut down the entire road, explaining that palliative efforts of Ogun state government made them to have a second thought.
“Ordinarily, the decision was to shut down this place entirely, but the efforts that we have seen by the state government, the place will not be shut down. We are sensitive, we are not here to inflict pain on the citizens of the state’, he said.
‘The citizens are already in pain. We are not here to add to it but to make a statement loud and clear that we won’t allow them to make a mess of us, just like Raji Fashola coming here to tell us that work would start immediately and nothing was done for more than two months.This is unacceptable to us and we are ready to take action’,Bankole said.
“Our people are on ground here to monitor the state of progress. We have our networks all over the state. We would not allow them to come and do window-dressing and leave this place. We want to be monitoring day to day progress on the road, I can assure our people about that.”
‘21 days ago, we were here. We gave an ultimatum to the government that we are not pleased with the state of the roads; particularly the minister of works coming here to promise that palliative works will commence immediately and several weeks after nothing was done. That was why the 21 days ultimatum was given’.
“Interestingly, a few days ago, they started some work. We can see some loads of granites by the state government. But this is not yet what we asked for. The minister was here and he promised to commence an immediate palliative that is yet to happen’, Bankole noted.
“As such, Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola, for coming to lie to the citizens of Ogun State, he is being declared persona non grata in Ogun State. We are declaring him an enemy of Ogun State. We don’t want to see him in Ogun State for coming to fool and deceive us that palliative works will commence and nothing was done.
“We saw what is on ground which is the effort of the state government. The federal government cannot be collecting all the money and be inflicting pains on us. That’s why we are here to make the statement loud and clear that Babatunde Raji Fashola, the ministry of works and also the FERMA in Ogun State are being declared persona non grata’.
Penpushing also reports that, Bankole declared that after the Ota protest, the workers would move the protest to the office of the Federal Road Management Authority, as a warning to the authority headquarters in Abuja
‘When we leave this place, we are going to the FERMA’s office in Abeokuta and also the ministry of works to send a message to their headquarters in Abuja that we are not pleased with what they are doing’, he emphasised.
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