Often times, financial institutions like banks, stock markets are reluctant to finance government projects due to varieties of reasons. The financial institutions observe such projects are too risky, not able to meet convenants, or they just do not work out for some reason. So in the period of austerity, where would the government go? This question was what informed Governor Gboyega Oyetola to chart a new course for himself and the state on how public sector projects would be financed in Osun State. Money no dey, but government must provide capital projects, key capital projects, which are the drivers of economy.
What are the key capital projects needed in Osun? These are important projects the mass of the citizens told the governor, during his visitation to them after his election victory, that they needed. These
are projects contained in the DFID Needs Assessment document. The Department for International Development, DFID, now called the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), is a United Kingdom agency responsible for administering foreign aid. The goal of the department was to promote sustainable development and eliminate world poverty. This is a world-class development agency that supplies data for the purpose of solving poverty alleviation.
To alleviate poverty, there should be a deliberate effort to provide basic amenities for the citizens. This was the problem Oyetola was intending to solve when he came up with the idea of the Alternative Project Financing Approach, APfA, in the state. The APfA is a child of neccesity in the state. It was improvised to solve our financial peculiarities. The state had to model it to her peculiarities because as at February 2020 when Governor Oyetola approved projects to be undertaken through the APfA, there was no state in the south-west region that had adopted that model for funding their projects. In other words, Governor Oyetola is a pioneer of Alternative Project Financing Approach in the region. Meanwhile, Oyetola did not only pioneer the template, he also “exported” his partner in this venture, Peculiar Ultimate Concerns Limited, to the region. The promoter of Peculiar Limited, Olarenwaju Adeleke, is an Osun-born civil engineer who has had his signatures in many road construction in the country.
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After Osun experience, the states in the region began to court our son, Olarenwaju Adeleke Peculiar to solve their infrastructural challenges for them for they realised the approach is an ideal route to follow in this global economic austerity. It makes fund available without being bugged down by the pedantic requirements of the traditional lending institutions like banks who are subjected to regulatory or funding constraints. The model discourages project abandonment, substandard job and also frees funds for other critical needs of government. The approach is what Seyi Makinde adopted for the economic engineering of his administration. Recall that six month after Peculiar Limited began its partnership with Osun State government on its project, the Seyi Makinde-led government approached the company for a similar collaboration. There is the N8.5bn Airport-Ajia road project and the N5.4bn Lekan Salami Stadium Adamasingba project being financed by the same Peculiar Concern Limited. Whereas the PDP government in Oyo chose to invest its N5.4bn to renovate Adamasingba, Oyetola-led government chose to invest its N5.2bn for the reconstruction of 58km dilapidated roads in Osun State. The concerned roads are those in Ede, Ada, Ede-Ejigbo, Ada-Igbajo, Ilesha, Osogbo and the entire stretch of five major towns in Ife North local government. Priorities differ. Needs differ. Different strokes for different folks.
While sports is a cornerstone of Oyetola’s administration, the approach to it is not the same with that of Oyo. Oyetola believes sports thrives in a rancour-free, crisis-free atmosphere. Sports thrives where there is conducive environment. Spending scarce resources to build a stadium without first building road networks in the state may be counter-productive in Osun State. This is a considered opinion of Governor Gboyega Oyetola. And that is what dictates his policy thrust. Already, the state government in partnership with Peculiar Ultimate Concern Limited is building two mini world-class stadia in Osun State that will serve as FIFA center. There is one in Iragbiji and another in Ile-Ife. The same company is also building a sports academy in the state, in Ile-Ogbo, his home town. The academy will have 5,000 to 6,000 capacity stadium, four training pitches for track and field events with 1,200 seater, students classrooms and staff quarters, 18 holes Golf Course and multiple sporting arena among other world class features. This is being possible because Oyetola government is providing infrastructure, including road, power and water for the effective functioning of the academy.
Osun is gaining a lot from her partnership with Peculiar Concern Limited. We citizens are pleased with what we are getting. We are not comparing ourselves with Oyo as the Osun PDP e-squirrels are labouring to do. We are proud that our son, Engr Olarenwaju Adeleke, from Ile-Ogbo, is helping our sister state of Oyo build its road network and sporting facilities through a sound economic interventionist template like Alternative Project Financing Approached started by our amiable and adept governor, financial encyclopedia Gboyega Oyetola. We are proud of that. End of Discussion
