The Ogun State government has disclosed that it will continue with the plan to construct an agro-cargo airport in the state. The State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, made this known at the weekend when he received the Senate Committee on Aviation led by Senator Smart Adeyemi, at the Exco Chamber of the Governor’s Office, Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta. Abiodun said that the agro-cargo airport project, conceptualized by the Gbenga Daniel administration in 2007, has lots of potentials in the overall development of the state in particular and the country in general.
The Nation recalls that the immediate past administration of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, jettisoned the idea of a cargo airport shortly after he took his oath of office on May 29, 2011 and about seven years after, opting instead, in 2018, for a passenger airport with its proposed location in the Ewekoro area of the state.
Aside the fact that the area is already home to two giant manufacturing companies, thus, making it unsuitable for a facility such as an airport to be sited there with its environmental implications, Ewekoro area is also viewed as not being strategically located in terms of accessibility by every section of the Gateway State.
However, addressing the Senate Committee on Aviation further, Abiodun noted that the proposed location for the airport (passengers airport) has the largest cement factories in the country, and that those factories are emitting dust particles and pollutants into the sky. He said what Ogun State is yearning for is an airport that will support its massive agro development potentials and the choice of Ilishan a unanimous one as it complements the Agric/processing factories eco system in that corridor with access/egress road network.
The governor maintained that the people of the state entrusted his administration with qualitative representation to create the enabling environment for a public private sector partnership, which is fundamental to the creation of an enduring economic development. According to him, the decision to continue with the agro- airport project, located in Ilishan-Remo in Ogun East Senatorial District, was made by the state’s joint inter-ministerial committee, which evaluated and placed priority on it as against the Ewekoro passenger airport.
He also noted that a lot of verifiable work had started on the agro-cargo airport project, which had the approval of the federal Ministry of Transportation and the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA). He, however, informed the committee that there were no details or information on the Ewekoro project in the handing over note of the Amosun’s administration.
