Date: 2016-11-09

People of Ifelodun local government area of Kwara State have called on the state government to find a solution to the deplorable states of several roads in the community.

According to them, many communities of the area are at a disadvantage owing to the location of the local government headquarters, Shaare, which they said is the largest local government in Kwara Statea, with vast land.

The residents, leveraging on the state government's newly launched Infrastructure Development Fund (IF-K), aimed at aiding infrastructure development and cushion the effect of the economic recession in the state, they are calling on the state government not to concentrate the development in the cities of the state.

It will be recalled that traditional rulers and community leaders had urged Governor Abdulfatah Ahmed to extend the gesture to their places, instead of concentrating in Ilorin, Offa, and others big towns that have being getting attention all along.

A youth leader, who spoke with Nigerian Tribune, urged the government to make use a significant part of the fund that has been proposed for Infrastructure 'InfraFund Kwara,' IF-K in the road construction.

"For example, people coming from Ilorin to Igbaja would need to go through Ajasse-Ipo enroute Buhari township, instead of Igbo-Owu Maloko axis that is much shorter. People going to places like Durosooto, Ola okun, Aladi would need to go through the same Igbaja, which is a very long distance. So, we are calling on the governor to look into road condition in these areas, especially, rural areas. It's with this we will know that government is interested in ameliorate poverty in our society," he said.

Following Governor Ahmed's statement that the outcome of the evaluation exercise showed an estimated N225 billion deficit value of infrastructure across all the 16 local government areas and spanning all sectors, which required both government and private investment, in order to boost the state's, stakeholders believe that provision of road network take prominence over other sectors.

"The main objectives of IF-K are to provide a guided, systemic and outward facing framework for continuous and consistent infrastructure development, optimally leverage private sector or resources for infrastructures development and maximize the state's resource allocation policies," the state governor had said.