Afe Babalola urges Tinubu to fix deplorable Ado-Ijan-Ilumoba-Ikole Road

By Boye Oyeyemi

Founder of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola, has appealed to President Bola Tinubu to urgently intervene in the deplorable condition of the Ado-Ijan-Ilumoba-Ikole Federal Road in Ekiti State.

Babalola made the appeal in an open letter in which he also commended former presidential adviser and Senator Babafemi Ojudu for drawing attention to the poor state of the road. He said the condition of the road had become a major obstacle to economic and social development in the state.

The legal icon lamented that decades after the creation of Ekiti State, poor road infrastructure had continued to hamper its development. He described the state as landlocked and said it lacked adequate road, rail, industrial, power and airport connections.

According to him, the road, which dates back more than a century, serves several important institutions, including ABUAD, the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, the National Open University of Nigeria campus, a Federal Government-owned silo and the Ekiti Agro-Allied International Cargo Airport.

Babalola said ABUAD spent billions of naira between 2010 and 2019 maintaining portions of the road and the old Ureje Bridge after repeated appeals to the Federal Government failed to produce the desired result.

However, he recalled that the Federal Government had awarded contracts for the rehabilitation of the road on different occasions, but expressed disappointment that the projects had failed to resolve the problem, leaving parts of the route virtually impassable.

“The road is so bad that many of our lecturers who live outside the campus can no longer come to the university with their vehicles, causing them to arrive late for work. It is that bad,” he said.

Babalola urged Tinubu to personally inspect the road, saying the president’s intervention had become necessary, particularly as ABUAD is expected to host the October 21 conferment of honorary Doctor of Laws degrees on him by Trinity Western University, Canada, and Trinity International University, USA. He also appealed to Ekiti leaders and residents to join the campaign for the rehabilitation of the road, stressing that “something must be done about this road, and the time is now.”