Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, has stressed the need for the deregulation of the petroleum sector to make fund available for the construction of roads and provision of other basic amenities.
Abiodun said this when he received members of the Depot and Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPMAN) in his office at Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta on Wednesday.
Abiodun said it was increasingly becoming difficult to provide infrastructure, hence the need to embark on the deregulation of the oil sector.
“We can actually embark on deregulation and the savings will be about a trillion Naira. If these savings are put into road infrastructure, the citizens of Nigeria will appreciate it”, he said.
The governor, who noted the deplorable condition of roads to be the biggest problem confronting the people said, “in the course of my campaign, we realized that the biggest problem that our people have is the state of our intra-city and township roads. That is the biggest problem.
“If you just fix roads in this state and do nothing else, our people will be happy because it facilitates every other thing. If people can move from Point A to point B, they can transport their children to school, can move their products and produce to markets and go to work on good roads, they will be happy”, he said.
The Governor said he was not impressed by the marginal drop on local consumption of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) from 56 to 53 million litres per day due to border closure, saying the drop was an indication that little had been achieved.
“NNPC showed some numbers that arose from the border closure that the consumption of fuel has dropped from 56 to 53 million litres daily. It shows that we have to achieve very little. When you look at the N145 charge in Nigeria and the N320 that is charged in the neighboring country, there is more than enough to go round to compromise everybody, so we cannot continue to deceive ourselves; we must do something about it”, he observed.
Speaking further, Abiodun called on members of the association to come and invest in the State.
He added that the state is a factor in the supply and distribution chain, as it is a host to one of NNPC’s biggest depots in the country and with gas pipelines crisscrossing the length and breadth of the State.
