Alao-Akala, Accord Party reply APC on decaying infrastructure in Oyo State

A former governor of Oyo State, Adebayo Alao-Akala, yesterday in Ogbomoso asked Gov. Abiola Ajimobi to stop blaming previous administrations for the poor state of infrastructure in the state.Alao-Akala, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), in reaction to a statement by the Oyo State APC. The former governor said Ajimobi should rather brace up for the challenges of governance and accept responsibility for negligence. The APC statement had blamed the past administrations of Alao-Akala and Rasheed Ladoja in the state for the decay in infrastructure.
The state�s APC Chairman, Chief Akin Oke, had on Sunday claimed that the Ajimobi administration inherited decayed infrastructure from previous administrations. �You will recall that 26 bridges collapsed in Oyo State during the August (2012) flood. �Between the governments of Ladoja and Alao-Akala, you cannot point to any meaningful construction of bridges carried out by them. �Worse still, the dredging of rivers and streams and the de-silting of same were alien to their governments. �It is no wonder that bridges, streams and rivers, left for years without adequate care, started giving way, leading to the flood witnessed in the state,� he said.
Alao-Akala, however, said his administration embarked on the construction of bridges to check flooding in the state. �How can someone who has spent three years in office continue to blame his negligence and woes on past governments? �My administration constructed a new bridge at Itamoko in the Ogo-Oluwa Local Government Area within a few weeks of the collapse of the bridge. �There is also the other one at Odo-Oba area of Ogbomoso, to mention only a few of those constructed by my administration.
�The project for the construction of the Apete bridge had been awarded and re-awarded to different contractors in the last three years. �Certainly, Alao-Akala and Ladoja are not the contractors,�� he said. Also speaking to NAN, Mr Bashiru Lawal, the Chairman of Accord Party in the state, said the Ajimobi-led administration must take responsibility for the decaying infrastructure in the state.
He decried the poor state of public utilities in the state, saying incidents of collapsed bridges in the state were becoming worrisome. �Ajimobi was sworn in as governor in May and the Apete bridge collapsed in October of that year (2011).

How does that concern Alao-Akala and Ladoja?�� Lawal