Buhari Hails Oshiomole’s Achievements in Edo

 Former head of state and presidential aspirant of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Major Gen­eral Muhammadu Buhari (Rtd.) has commended Gov­ernor Adams Oshiomhole of Edo State for the monumen­tal development his admin­istration has brought to Edo State in the last six years.
General Buhari gave the commendation Saturday when he inaugurated the newly re­constructed six-lane Airport Road and the remodelled Ima­guero College, in Benin City, which has 18 blocks of 104 classrooms, a large school hall, a chapel, staff rooms, an ICT centre and other standard con­veniences.
The former head of state who was thrilled by what he saw said, “let me express my appreciation to the governor for the great work he has done in this state and also to express my delight and congratulate the people of Edo State for the massive support given to Com­rade Adams Oshiomhole.
“I am very grateful and ap­preciate your success. By set­ting the idea of infrastructural development and putting the people first in all your policies, till the end of time, the people of Edo State will never forget you, I congratulate you for your ideas and all,” he said.

He also appreciated the Oba of Benin, Omo n’Oba n’Edo, Uku Akpolokpolor, Oba Ere­diauwa for the support he has given to the Oshiomhole administration in the last six years, saying the achievements recorded so far in the state would not have been possible but for the royal father’s sup­port. At the inauguration of the road, Governor Oshiomhole said, “We thought that look­ing at all the projects we have in the state, the Airport Road is the flagship. It took the in­tervention of our paramount traditional ruler, the Oba of Be­nin who had to do a letter to the then Speaker of the Edo State House of Assembly, Hon, Za­kawanu Garuba at a time when PDP had two-third members of the House.
“They had bluntly refused the budgetary allocation that was provided for in the ap­propriation of 2009 which provided for the construction of this road along with other roads construction in Benin City. This road was part of the budget I was directed to bring down to Abuja by the leader of PDP who is currently the Chairman of their Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih
“I was asked to take the bud­get up to his sitting room and the then Speaker of the House was seated along with other principal officers of the House and I was asked to go through the budget page by page.
“When the chief saw the allocation to Benin roads, he asked me why should you de­vote so much resources to Be­nin roads. I thought it was an honest question and I attempted an honest reply. I said to him sir, given the resource profile of Edo State and all that we need to do, I am convinced that if we are going to make prog­ress with our lean resources, we do not want to spread our resources so thinly everywhere such that we make no impact anywhere.
“Given the crisis in Benin in terms of erosion, we needed to make huge investments on Benin roads and drainage and he said to me, no, reduce the budget on all the roads in Be­nin City by 50 per cent and redistribute it into recurrent ex­penditure. Whereas our budget was designed to achieve a ratio of 65 for capital and 35 per cent for recurrent, by the time chief was done, the budget had been revised in favour of recurrent. What was actually left for Air­port Road was not enough to mobilise any serious contractor to site. Invariably, the interven­tion was meant not to construct the Airport Road along with all other roads in Benin City”.
“Over time, the ratio of the House changed and APC pro­duced the leadership of the House. We then subsequently re-ordered our budget to reflect the priority of Edo State and this road became one of those flagship projects.
On the entourage of General Buhari were leaders of the All Progressives Congress includ­ing Chief Audu Ogbeh, and Mallam Nasir el-Rufai.