The Pan-Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, has lauded President Bola Tinubu for his administration’s commitment to delivering critical infrastructure, particularly road projects that directly impact citizens’ lives.
Speaking to journalists at the Akure Airport on Tuesday, Afenifere’s General Secretary, Sola Ebiseni, praised the President for flagging off the first phase of the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, describing it as a landmark initiative.
Ebiseni noted that the coastal highway project would not only enhance connectivity across regions but also usher in a new era of infrastructural development for the Niger Delta and surrounding areas.
He commended the Tinubu administration for its bold steps in actualising projects that had long been on the drawing board, saying such efforts would bring economic growth and social transformation to the people.
“I notice some monumental initiatives, particularly in the area of road infrastructure development. Take the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, for instance.
“We have archival records that the road was proposed around 1900 when the Ilaje coastal territory of the present Ondo State was still part of Lagos Colony. There was already a telegraphic line which connected Lagos through Ilaje to Warri along the Atlantic corridor.
“The road was designed in alignment with the telegraphic route to link Lagos Colony with the Southern Protectorate, whose headquarters were then incidentally at Calabar,” he said.
Mr Ebeseni recalled that an agreement to link the road was reached in 1900 when Sir William Macgregor, Governor of Lagos Colony, was on tour of the Ilaje, the eastern boundary of the colony up to around the Benin River in Warri Division.
“The document was later signed on the 12th January 1904 between Sir William Macgregor, Governor of Lagos Colony, and Sir Wyndham Roseberry of Southern Protectorate.
“President Tinubu has taken such a bold step in launching this historic road project which, if faithfully implemented, would be the most monumental, particularly in the Niger Delta.”
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He charged President Tinubu to allow the road project to follow the coastline of Ilaje in Ondo State, aside from the coastal route of Lagos.
Fielding questions on the division rocking the group, Mr Ebeseni said the two factions of the late Ayo Adebanjo and Pa Reuben Fasoranti have what it takes to come together in unionism.
According to him, Afenifere is a welfarist socio-political organisation with an ideological stance that has been maintained since 1951 with an unambiguous position on national issues.
“At critical times in our national life in the Action Group, UPN, SDP/NADECO, AD, AD/APP and presently, there have been contests on ideological ground which have always been resolved according to Awolowo on the interplay of thesis and antithesis.
“The current disagreement is not so deep in my view. It is between strict adherence to its historical socio-political character of Awolowo’s political world view and the new romance with being a Yoruba socio-cultural organisation of all-comers.
“No viable organisation, including political parties, is spared the bug of centrifugal forces today in our country. The new leader has what it takes to navigate the mines and bring all together.”