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Olusegun Agagu, three years after

By Oluwaseun Akingboye, Akure.
15 September 2016   |   2:30 am
Tuesday made it three years since the death of former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu, on September 13 2013; nonetheless, his legacies and the achievements while in power have continued ...
Agagu

Agagu

Tuesday made it three years since the death of former governor of Ondo State, Olusegun Agagu, on September 13 2013; nonetheless, his legacies and the achievements while in power have continued to reverberate across the three senatorial districts of the state.

The 14th governor of the state and fourth executive governor was still being remembered for the establishment of a micro-credit agency (OSMA), endowed with over N3.2b to give credit to farmers, workers and entrepreneurs.

Similarly, it would be recalled that he succeeded in rehabilitating over 1000 kilometres of road in five years compared to his predecessors since 1976, who only had 592km to their credit.

Speaking on the legacies of the former governor, the President, Movement for the Survival of the Underprivileged (MOSUP) Mr. Dappa Maharajah described the former governor as a sun that glowed across Ondo during his tenure.

He recounted the indelible footprints and hallmarks of Agagu whom he described as more of an administrator than a politician.

Similarly, a senior journalist in Akure, who pleaded anonymity, disclosed that Agagu, who was also a former Minister of Aviation, and later Power and Steel, intimated him with the master-plan the he had projected to cushion the present financial and economic crises in the state.

Listing some of the achievements of the Agagu, Maharajah said he constructed 600 model six classroom blocks across the 18 councils with another 200 under construction as at the time he left office after the 21 months protracted litigation in court.

He constructed 200 basic healthcare centres for each of the 203 wards in the state, turning around the 4.4 per cent water coverage with only four people in a hundred in 2003 on assumption of office to 52% in five years of his administration.

Agagu also achieved a milestone in the agricultural sector. He built 102 youth farms and one million seedlings for cocoa and teak were provided for the farmers yearly with robust poverty alleviation programmes that earned the acclamation of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

On accountability and transparency, the Senator representing Ondo Central District, Chief Tayo Alasoadura, who served under the former governor, as commissioner for Finance, credited Agagu’s administration on unrivalled prudence in governance.

According to him, “It has never happened in the history of the country for any state to disclose whatever it received as allocation from the Federal Government before the advent of Agagu in 2003.

The Senator presently in All Progressives Congress (APC) asserted that no month ever passed from 2003 till 2009 without the government declaring publicly the amount accrued to the state from the Federal Allocation.

According to him, the North and Central districts, could attest to the “compact government” style that bore positively on the tertiary institutions and the Millennium Villages and Cities even when none was located in the late governor’s Southern District.

He recalled that the sudden sack in 2009 stifled the realization of the lofty ideas of the Bitumen exploration, Olokola Free Trade Zone, Omotosho Power Plant, Igbokoda Seaport.

Nevertheless, the coastal communities in Ilaje, Ese-Odo, Okitipupa and Irele council areas would recall Agagu’s efforts to ease their transportation challenges.

Since the creation of the state on February 3, 1976 and the establishment of Ondo State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (OSOPADEC) thereafter, the coastal communities had suffered poor road networks because of their difficult terrains, especially in Ilaje and Ese-Odo local councils that are mainly disadvantaged by their geographical location in the lagoon.

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