The Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Tuesday, led other top government officials to inspect ongoing construction work at the state’s new town development project, with the promise to sanitize the state’s built environment and rid it of land grabbers.
During the inspection exercise, the governor said: “Most land grabbers have been declared wanted and few are currently being charged to Court, and once we get details of the whereabouts of those declared wanted, we will seek for extradition even if they are abroad and bring them back and try them for stealing because they have stolen other people’s lives.”
He noted, “The starting point is to establish the plan and begin to build infrastructure like electricity, roads, water supply system and fiber optics connectivity, among others as these are the things that the inhabitants need to live here and those are the investments that we need and require to make first.
“Once these are in place, I believe that from the sales of land and all the other sources, we will be able to raise enough money to continue to build the infrastructure. We have seen a lot of developers have shown their interest to develop mini estates from within the new town. Financing will not be a challenge. The rainy season has slowed down the work but we will take full advantage of the dry season to speed up work.”
On her part, the Commissioner for Physical Planning, Housing, Urban and Regional Development, Isoken Omo, said, “We have started marking all the roads today. We are doing the major collector road. We want to move very fast with the infrastructure so that by January 2023, we will start giving people what is available for sale.
“People have shown interest, both locally and internationally. This is a pilot programme and it will show how cities of the future will look like and how our cities should be planned. This will be taken round the different senatorial zones of the state.”
