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OPINION: Akpabio As Oliver Twist [Monday Lines 1]

Published

3 months ago

March 10, 2025

By Lasisi Olagunju

“Possibly he cohabited with Miss Bloggs, but don’t mention it in front of his wife, let the sleeping dogs lie.” Gordon Jarvie’s ‘Dictionary of Idioms’ contains that example of a warning that has been with us since Geoffrey Chaucer’s 1385 epic poem, Troilus and Criseyde. When the storm is angry and howling, the wise stays safe. I thought every man has that wisdom until I heard Senate President Godswill Akpabio at the weekend in Abuja vowing to devour a bowl of very hot 20-year-old pounded yam. To him, the sleeping dog must stop sleeping.

For some people, one trouble at a time is not enough. I count Akpabio among such persons. The tough meat in his mouth, he has not finished chewing, he is sinking his teeth into a tougher thigh. The mouthful wahala from delectable Senator Natasha is not enough; voracious Akpabio must do Oliver Twist; he wants one more problem to solve. He threatened at the weekend to sue former acting Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Joy Nunieh, over her 2020 allegations of sexual harassment leveled against him. Where are Akpabio’s younger friends? They should read to him Harry Porter’s exasperation: “And quite honestly, I’ve had enough trouble for a lifetime.”

In July 2020, Nunieh alleged that she slapped Akpabio, who was then the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, because he allegedly sexually harassed her:

“Why did he not tell Nigerians that I slapped him in his guest house at Apo? I am the only Ogoni woman, the only Nigerian woman that has slapped him. I slapped him because of his plan B. Since he couldn’t get me to take that money, he thought that he could come up on me,” Nunieh told Arise TV at the time and proceeded to explain that sexual harassment was what she meant by “come up on me.”

For five years, Akpabio slumbered and snored. A slap from a lady called Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan appears to have now woken up Nigeria’s number one lawmaker. Addressing the matter at the weekend, Akpabio announced his intention to take legal action against Nunieh. “My other sister, the one they sometimes refer to as Joy Nunieh, I will like to mention her name because she will be hearing from my lawyer anytime in the next one week. Crime never dies.”

When is trouble enough? And, does the right to seek judicial remedies exist forever? By July this year, it will be five years since Nunieh made her sensational slap statement. She uttered the claim, Akpabio pretended she said nothing significant. Akpabio is a lawyer. At the law school, his teachers taught him that rights of action are subject to specific time frames. The cause of action occurred in Abuja. The Limitation Act which applies in Abuja, what does it say on when a man is barred from suing for defamation of character? Or does Akpabio want to approach this as a criminal offence which is not statute-barred, especially now that he is Nigeria’s very powerful number three citizen? In that case, it won’t be a case of “hearing from (his) lawyers”. It will be a case of the slapper hearing from the very duteous Nigeria police. We cannot wait.

Sixteenth/seventeenth century English writer and physician, Thomas Fuller, has a line for strong, big men who think they are bigger than the biggest, stronger than the strongest: “Be ye never so high, the law is above you.” These exact words came handy for Lord Denning, Master of the Rolls, when he had to rule against the Attorney General for England and Wales in a 1977 case. In full he invoked the spirit of Fuller and cast his potent words “to every subject of this land, however powerful.” But that was in a democracy. What we have here, is it democracy or the craze of the demos?

What should be a leader’s reaction to attacks and allegations? The British House of Lords in 1987 delivered a controversial judgment backing the ban of Spycatcher, the memoirs of a former MI5 officer, Peter Wright. The Daily Mirror reacted with an upside down photo of the three law lords who decided the case in favour of Margaret Thatcher’s government. The picture came with the caption: ‘You Old Fools.’ Many thought that was insulting and contemptuous of the court. But, the Law Lord, Sydney William Templeman, did not think so. The lord noted that the caption contained three words ‘You’, ‘Old’ and ‘Fools’. The world might think the caption offensive but to my lord, they were not. Templeman said it was indeed true that he was an old man. He said being a fool or not was a matter of perception but he knew he was not a fool. He caused the matter to end right there.

Sir Alexander Cockburn was England’s Lord Chief Justice in 1879. He was incensed at scathing criticisms of one of his rulings. He thought the right course to take was to use his high office and his knowledge of the law to take down his critics. Cockburn did the very unusual: he published a 24-page pamphlet in rebuttal of the strictures and thoroughly abused his critics. But his pamphlet did not help him; his rebuttal attracted a string of counter rebuttals. Records say that the Lord Chief Justice came out of that controversy diminished in social and intellectual standing. Roderick Munday who went over that case again in 1987, wrote that “this unedifying episode illustrates how even the holder of the highest office can make a spectacle of himself.” Munday’s conclusion is that “if ever a judge again feels disposed to respond to public strictures, he might first do well to ponder the experience of Cockburn C.J.”

A man in a hole is still digging. Senator Akpabio thinks an old and long-forgotten war is worth exhuming. He must combine it with the present and have both crushed. Good luck to him.

Can I now examine how he is handling the present problem? Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan accused Akpabio of sexual harassment. Akpabio kept quiet for almost a week; when he spoke, it was as a judge in his own case. His wife and almost the whole of the Senate were the first to come out roaring. Without investigation, they said Akpabio did not do what he was accused of doing. They said the lady had assaulted the integrity of their presiding officer. They were very rancorous like passengers in a midair troubled plane.

One of the senators said Natasha should use the period of her suspension to learn the Senate rules. I found that quite ironic. It will be appropriate if that member and other members learn what the law says about a man sitting in judgment over his own case. Or, what did they think happened when Mr Akpabio appointed the jury, sat as the judge, read his judgment and convicted his accuser? If you are accused of harbouring unsightly intestines, why wouldn’t you use common sense to pack them well and far from public sneer?

The convicted is already shouting fair hearing. A first year law student knows that the Latin phrase, ‘Nemo Judex In Causa Sua’ means no one should be a judge in his own cause. It is a universal principle of fair hearing that in judicial and administrative proceedings, a judge or an administrator having personal or proprietary interest in the outcome of a proceeding must not exercise adjudicatory powers in the case in question. Was Akpabio set up to take that route? A smart Akpabio would have let his deputy handle that case. If he did, justice would have been seen to have been done. Or, could it be that Akpabio and his Senate believed that only weaklings without money and power bother about procedural fairness? And there are lawyers among them.

I do not know how they do it where Akpabio comes from but in my part of the country, no wise man is allowed to directly judge his own case. A man would be an original àgbà òsìkà to make himself judge over his enemies. Section 36 of our constitution is clear on right to fair hearing. And it is universal in its application. The US Supreme Court also carefully laid this out: “A fair trial in a fair tribunal is a basic requirement of due process. Fairness, of course, requires an absence of actual bias in the trial of cases… To this end, no man can be a judge in his own case and no man is permitted to try cases where he has an interest in the outcome.” In another case, the court held that “prejudice, in order to be disqualifying, must consist of a personal animosity toward one party or very strong feeling in favour of the other party.” In this case of Natasha, Chief Akpabio was actually the other party – the accused; and he was the judge.

The senate riotously mobbed the accuser out of the chamber. She will be in the cold for six months. This is not about who is saying the truth and who is lying. No one outside the two actors can say what the ‘true’ truth is. What is true is known to the supposedly harassed and the alleged harasser. But I think Akpabio, for whatever reasons, should not have bungled his case. He shouldn’t have sat over the matter with the catty visage of the lion, king of the jungle. What he did is what the English qualify with the word ‘impunity’. And I think he did so because in this country, anyone blessed with his kind of uncommon bigness is hefty enough to pocket the law.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: [OPINION] Pa Adebanjo: A Celebration Of Death

At the weekend again, Akpabio went regional in search of defence. He thought his tribulations should wear the tunic of politics. He vowed that the South South region (where he comes from) would not surrender the senate presidency no matter the level of gang up against him. He said: “The Senate President of today is not representing himself alone. He is representing a people who are very crucial to the economic life wire of this country. So, when people gang up and conspire, I hear voices from Adamawa shouting, I hear voices from Kwara State shouting, I hear some young people from the southwest being used for something they don’t know, they don’t know the rules of the Senate, you can’t be a herbalist and start quoting the Bible, you won’t know what to quote.” Interesting. So, Akpabio’s enemies are from the South West, the North Central and the North East? Who are they? And he said the young people (aka herbalists) from the south west are very ignorant? Who are they? Those who want to be lame should be completely lame, the blind should be blind totally; half blinded people always plunge the world into wars. If I were Akpabio, I would be bold and total in naming names. That is what real men do.

If you carry a pot of uncommon palm oil, run away from stone throwers. Has Akpabio ever heard the Yoruba story of
the small rat that says it will destroy the farmer’s work (Eku kékeré t’ó ní òun yóò ba isé àgbè jé)? The story, with a little adjustment, is reproduced here as told by James Bọ̀dé Agbájé in his ‘Proverbs: A Strategy for Resolving Conflict in Yorùbá Society’:

“There was once a small rat on a farm who said to the farmer that he would destroy all the farmer’s work. The farmer answered the rat: ‘How can you destroy my work, you tiny idiot?’ When the maize on the farm matured, the rat went to see the farmer and told him again that he would destroy all the farmer’s work. The farmer just burst out laughing and told the rat: ‘You are joking. How will you destroy this huge maize farm?’ The rat said okay and departed. When the farmer was harvesting his maize, the rat revisited the farm and again promised the farmer that one day all his harvest would be destroyed. The farmer just ignored the rat and the rat went away. After the farmer had finished packing all his harvested crops in the aka (‘barn’), the rat managed to enter the barn unnoticed. He started eating part of the maize and left the wasted remnants covering the ground.

“The farmer knew what was happening and announced, ‘I know you are in there. You just hide yourself there.’ He was determined to deal ruthlessly with the small wicked rat. The rat heard the farmer and answered him. He told him that he had promised the farmer that his farm would be destroyed and the time had now come for the operation. The angry farmer thought he should just smoke out the stupid tiny rat. A little fire he made went out of hand. Within the twinkling of an eye, all the maize caught fire. Just then, the rat escaped and the whole place was burnt to ashes. Later, the rat went to the farmer and said to him that the deed was done. The rat boasted: ‘I promised to shatter your efforts and you underrated what I said. Haven’t I destroyed all the fruits of your labour now?’ The farmer was downcast and started to bite his fingers in regret. He said that if he had taken the proper precautions and had not underrated the stupid tiny rat, the whole situation could have been averted.” The powerful should be very careful; the ground is wet and slippery.

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How Atiku, El-Rufai, Amaechi Can Learn From Tinubu’s School Of Politics

Published

6 hours ago

June 22, 2025

Editor

By Festus Adedayo

Power politics in the animal kingdom could be as intense, deceptive and selfish as it is in the human kingdom. An ancient African allegory whose patent cannot be credited to a particular tradition illustrates this. It is the fable of an old forest warhorse, the lion. After years of feasting on animals, his mane soaked in their innocent blood, Old Lion became too senescent to hunt for games. Stricken with old age, diverse infirmities and unable to put food on his own table, the King decided to get food by subterfuge and trickery.

Always by himself and soaked in myriad thoughts and stratagems for many nights and days, one day a thought sidled into his mind. He would pretend to be so infirm that he could not hunt and thus court ‘get well’ visits of other animals. He then got emissaries to broadcast his infirmity round and about the forest. As the message got to them, the animals debated the prospect of visiting him after the debilitating havoc he had wrecked on their peers and forebears. The majority of opinions supported paying the king of the jungle get-well-quick visits.

Thus, one after the other, animals of various kinds paid the King visits in his supposed infirmary. As each sauntered in, the King made barbecue of their fleshes. However, Tortoise, the wily Trickster animal, according to the Yoruba version of that fable, burst the King’s bubble. Some other African climes’ account say it was not Tortoise but the Red Fox. So, the animal came to the conclusion that, though he would satisfy the majority’s decision to pay the King obeisance, he would be a whiff careful and wiser.

So Fox/Tortoise devised a trick. He presented himself at a respectable distance from a cave by the hill that led to the King’s lair. From there, he shouted at the top of his voice to the aged King Lion to announce his presence. On hearing his voice, the King peered out queasily and bade him come into the lair. Like an Apiroro, one who feigns sleep, who must be atop the mastery of the theatrics of their game, the Lion dragged his response with great effort and said, “I am not so well… But, my friend, why do you stand without? Pray, come in and wish me well.” The Fox/Tortoise, in a sarcasm that mocked the Lion’s theatrics said: “No, thank you, Your Majesty. But, I noticed that there are many prints of feet entering your cave, but I see no trace of any returning.”

Last Friday, ex-Vice President Atiku Abubakar, Nasir El-Rufai, Rotimi Amaechi and their co-travelers inside the Nigerian National Coalition Group (NNCG) coach arrived at a significant juncture in their bid to send President Bola Tinubu back to Lagos in 2027. On that day, the NNCG formally applied to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for registration as the All Democratic Alliance (ADA) party.

As far as formality goes, the dramatis personae on this journey have many reasons to clink champagne glasses. In semiotic representation, which is the study of signs, symbols, their use and representation, ADA would seem to be the greatest weapon in the NNCG’s hands to skewer the heart of the Broom, symbol of the reigning All Progressives Congress (APC).

Like the old wily Lion, virtually all the political characters on the two aisles of the divide – opposition and in government – suffer similar fates in the estimation of Nigerians today. In relationship calculus, Yoruba advise a younger one burying the elder in the presence of the younger sibling to be mindful of the depth of the grave they dig because same fate awaits them. At the joint sitting of the National Assembly on Democracy Day, Tinubu literally gloated about the walnut-pod-seeds schism and discord that characterize Nigeria’s opposition parties. “It is, indeed, a pleasure to witness you in such disarray,” he said.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: OPINION: Tinubu, Sanwo-Olu And The Fish God

A few days later, the demon came out of its seclusion. The deodorant the APC had been spraying over its messy internal power struggles expired and the putrid smell hit the nose with the bang of an Iraqi missile. The party’s Northeast leaders’ meeting for the adoption of Tinubu for a second term exposed vultures gathering round the APC in an ominous exclusion plan against Kashim Shettima. The game is to spike Shettima’s name from the 2027 presidential ballot.

Today, APC’s power apparatchik is running helter-skelter. The task is to paper over a grisly crack, an implosion tornado that may erupt in the Shettima exclusion gambit. It is a throwback into a historic Tinubu total power holding tendency, a total frown at and intolerance for sharing power with anyone. As Lagos governor, Tinubu dispensed with deputies as a junky changes syringes.

All of a sudden, erstwhile good governance poster-boy, Borno State governor, Babagana Zulum, a Shettima boy, has become the proverbial Elúùlù, a Yoruba-named brown-feathered Wood Dove bird whose cry is reputed to possess the mystical power of drawing rains from the heavens. The belief is that Elúùlù’s rain could cause everyone to scamper out for alternative shield. As Zulum chirps like Elúùlù, either on the insecure security in his state, against the Tinubu government’s dissonant narrative of peace in Borno, or even over other matters, power watchers see an internal power disruption in the APC.

Zulum’s Elúùlù may be foreshadowing a bitter rain that will pour in the APC over Shettima’s exclusion from a second term. This cry may also be a reminder of a Kowée, another mystic bird which Yoruba mythological belief says whenever it chirps, a lurking danger of death is imminent.

The Shettima travails may point to a saying that the whiplash used to trounce the older wife is kept for the younger one on the rafter. It was this same Shettima who, on a Channels Television interview, mocked the totalitarian system of Nigerian presidency which sidelined Yemi Osinbajo under Muhammadu Buhari. Shettima had said, “Osinbajo is a good man; he’s a nice man. But nice men do not make good leaders, because nice men tend to be nasty. Nice men should be selling popcorn, ice cream.” Today, Shettima sells a medley of ice cream and popcorn under a nasty and grim presidential power play.

Then, there is intense hunger and anger in the land which government is obviously too lame to tame. Statistics have become ballistics which the Tinubu government’s mind-doctor evangelists bombard Nigerians with. The latest ballistic is that inflation figure has decreased. Yet, the spinners of these figures are unable to explain the fit of sulks Nigerians relapse into when they confront skyrocketing foods and goods in the market. Neither is anyone responding to the people’s groan at their ebbing purchasing power which the twin policies of subsidy withdrawal and Naira flotation have birthed. It is obvious that, as Nigerians walk into the electioneering years, government will have no balm to apply on the people’s aches.

Then, there is the gale of insecurity in the country. Unbeknown to Nigerians, the Tandi of the Buhari government which they thought was dance-shy, cannot even stand the TandiTandi of the Tinubu government which does not have a waist to wag to any danceable tune. Northeast terrorists dance to celebratory songs as they hijack Nigerian local governments as their spoils of war. Same terrorists drink palm-wine with dead Nigerians’ skulls as gourds. In the Northwest, bandits kill Nigerians en-masse as you trample on cockroaches. Benue and Plateau States are poster-boys of government’s helplessness in the face of superior herders’ brains, weapons and strategies. Nigerians in those states bury their dead in silence as federal government regurgitates obituaries, condolence messages as press releases which mask its cowardice. The recent Benue massacre is an example.

So many other missteps of the last two years line the dais. They are missteps which an opposition group or party could weaponize to win Nigerians’ hearts. Is it the Gilbert Chagoury-lization of the Nigerian economy? Or the lack of openness and accountability in the Lagos-Calabar 700km N15trillion road project which the president awarded to a man he openly admitted was his ally? Is it the Airbus A330 presidential aircraft which cost Nigeria $100million and which never passed the senate lens? Is it the flying rumour of mind-boggling corruption that has stuck to this government like a leech in two years? You do not have to scrape more than the surface to amass a shovelful.

To rehash what wily Trickster Tortoise told Lion, King of the jungle, those putting together the ADA as Nigeria’s opposition party also have Tinubu-type logs in their eyes. Nigerians see them as people who have “many prints of feet entering your cave, but (see) no trace of any returning”.

Tinubu was right by claiming, as he did in Kaduna last week, that Uba Sani had transformed the State from a “toxic, uncontrollable environment”.

Under El-Rufai, Kaduna was a horror scene. Though ranked comparatively higher than any other state in Nigeria by multilateral agencies on the scorecard of good governance and accountability, in eight years, El-Rufai’s Kaduna was a state of weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. The peace in Southern Kaduna today is a departure from the toxicity of the El-Rufai era. When you now have the same character seeking to play leading role in bringing a let to the suffering of the people of Nigeria, it speaks volumes of the kind of leadership Nigerians should look forward to.

MORE FROM THE AUTHOR: Olunloyo: Goodnight, Voltaire

Then, Atiku Abubakar. The ex-VP’s politics is undoubtedly woven round self. Since 1993, he has been a presidential candidate and has failed on each occasion. It is obvious that the current ADA is again primed round him. When self is the issue as in this manner, Yoruba ask if the individual’s esophagus is the sole route to Oyo (Onàofu ntienikanniwonn’gbalos’Oyóní?)

Amaechi is not any better. Having lost out in the power equation of the post-Tinubu era, this former Transport Minister has become an emergency critic, even being ludicrous enough to claim he is hungry. The trio and their co-travelers are united by anger and lust for power, rather than any meaningful attempt to rescue Nigeria from the vice grip of Tinubu. ADA is a huge log that has stayed afloat on and fed on the ecosystem of the murky and filthy river of Fourth Republic Nigerian politics for too long. It has stayed so long on the river that it is mistaking itself for an amphibian animal. And Yoruba say, no matter how long a log stays in the river, it will never become a crocodile.

Borrowing from Lasisi Olagunju, ADA and its minders are like mourners at their own funeral. They can never be a soothing counterpoise to the rot of the Tinubu government. Were it to be possible, the Ibrahim Babangida newbreed model would have been a perfect reply to this current order where, head or tail, Nigerians may lose.

The ADA crew, especially Atiku Abubakar, would need to learn some basic lessons that Tinubu taught Nigerian politics. Between 2007 when he left Lagos governorship and 2023 when he became president, Tinubu wore the strategic patience garment of the vulture. He waited patiently within this period, biding his time for Aso Rock. He could have put himself forth to be Nigeria’s president in 2015 but strategically supported Buhari.

Conversely, at every election season, Atiku’s face thoughtlessly adorns presidential campaign posters like a boring epigram. It is obvious that he and his ADA are too mired in the problems and challenges of Nigeria to be a solution to them. Amaechi and El-Rufai are obviously in ADA out of anger and hungry for revenge against those who chucked them out of their birthright of being in government in perpetuity.

The little I know about anger is, when you are consumed by it, you wake up lost, and you will lose sight of everything. Including your sense.

News

Diri Approves Automatic Employment For UAT First Class Graduates

Published

20 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

Governor of Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri, has offered automatic employment to First Class degree graduates of the University of Africa, Toru-Orua (UAT), in Sagbama Local Government Area of the state.

In a statement, the Chief Press Secretary to governor, Daniel Alabrah, said Diri made the announcement on Saturday at the maiden combined convocation ceremony of 2020/2021, 2021/2022, 2022/2023 and 2024 academic sessions of the university.

Diri said the gesture was part of measures to check the brain drain syndrome.

The governor said the gesture had been replicated in other state-owned tertiary institutions such as the Niger Delta University, Amassoma, in line with his administration’s policy to prioritise education and boost human capital development.

Congratulating the graduands, the governor praised his predecessor, Senator Seriake Dickson representing Bayelsa West, for his vision and political will in establishing the UAT, which he noted was meeting the educational needs of the state and beyond.

“ln line with our government’s policy, all First Class graduates of UAT will be offered automatic employment to ensure that we do not lose our best brains.

“This first combined convocation ceremony of UAT is momentous and historical. When l took over as governor, l had a lot of presentations, which included closing down the UAT. But l came to the inescapable conclusion that rather than shutting it down, l opted to establish more because education remains our number one priority.”

As Visitor to the UAT, Diri announced the appointment and investiture of Dr. Nwachukwu Nnam Obi III, Ogba of Ogbaland in Rivers State, as the institution’s Chancellor.

Responding to the challenges presented by the Vice Chancellor, Diri said government will continue to address them through collaborative efforts and urged the institution to explore funding modules towards generating income.

While assuring that the auditorium and Senate building projects would be completed before the end of his tenure, the state’s chief executive promised that government would also address the problem of staff accommodation and that transport vehicles will be provided to ease the challenges faced by workers and students at UAT, NDU and the Federal University, Otuoke.

On the institution’s power needs, Diri said when the 60mw independent power plant procured by the government becomes functional, it would cover the university’s location.

In his remarks, the Vice Chancellor, Prof. Solomon Ebobrah, announced that 66 were awarded first class degrees out of the 905 graduands of the four academic sessions.

He expressed appreciation to the Diri administration for its increased monthly subvention to the UAT and listed a number of challenges to include uncompleted auditorium and Senate buildings, lack of perimeter fencing, power supply, staff accommodation, lecture theatres, teaching and non-teaching staff office accommodation among others.

In his remarks, the Pro Chancellor and Chairman, Governing Council, Barr. Kemela Okara, equally expressed gratitude to government for its support towards the successful accreditation of all programmes by the National Universities Commission.

News

Aiyedatiwa Proposes Death Penalty For Kidnappers

Published

21 hours ago

June 21, 2025

Editor

In a bid to eradicate kidnapping in the state, the Ondo State Government has proposed a death sentence for whoever is found guilty of kidnapping in the state.

The Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in the state, Dr Olukayode Ajulo, SAN, disclosed this while speaking with journalists on Saturday after the weekly state executive council meeting.

It was gathered that the state governor, Mr Lucky Aiyedatiwa presided over the meeting.

Ajulo said the proposal would soon be transmitted to the state House of Assembly for necessary legislative action.

He said, ”Kidnapping and cultism have become major threats to safety and public order and strengthening relevant legal frameworks would help deter such crimes and improve the overall security landscape.

”The proposals would soon be transmitted to the House of Assembly for necessary legislative action, including sentencing convicted kidnappers to death.”

Also speaking, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Infrastructure, Lands and Housing, Engr. Abiola Olawoye, revealed that the Executive Council approved the construction of two major dual-carriageway road projects in the state.

According to him, the first is the construction of a 24.75-kilometre dual carriageway from Ugbeyin Junction – Okitipupa Market – OAUSTECH – Ugbonla Junction – Igbokoda Jetty.

“The road will feature a 9.3-metre wide carriageway on both sides, a 1.2-metre median, concrete line drains, walkways, asphaltic shoulders in undeveloped areas, a 3-metre utility area, and solar-powered streetlights along the median. The entire road corridor is 28 metres wide, with a total right of way of 40 metres. It will also include modern traffic lights at critical intersections and is designed to carry heavy traffic with a reinforced pavement structure.

”The second project is the construction of a 6.7-kilometre dual carriageway from Supare Junction – Akungba – Ikare Road in Akoko area of the state. The specifications are similar, including a 9.3-metre carriageway on either side, 1.2-metre median, reinforced concrete line drains, walkways, a 3-metre utility area, solar-powered streetlights, and traffic management systems. It is also built to withstand heavy vehicular movement.

“In addition to these, the council approved the provision and installation of 6,000 standalone solar streetlights across the three senatorial districts—2,000 each for Ondo North, Ondo Central, and Ondo South. This is part of the state’s agenda to improve safety and public lighting infrastructure.”