The Gbeleyi Conundrum Can Sanwo-Olu do in 6months what Ambode could not do in 4years

By Razaq Adedeji Jimoh

The abandoned Gbeleyi Road project

IT is supposed to be a major project of significant value as continued by the administration of Babatunde Raji Fashola from the Blueprint of the Lagos Development Plan and the Alimosho Urbanisation Master Plan.

                From the overall social and economic objectives set for the about one and half Kilometres stretch of Isiba Oluwo Road corridor as Egbeda-Idimu link, the significant value of the project is not basically directed at the community of its situation in the Pipeline area of Idimu. It is a project valued for the entire Lagos residents of the southern parts of Alimosho, comprising Igando-Ikotun and Egbe-Idimu LCDAs, whose direction of daily economic endeavours is inward Ikeja and Agege areas.

                The Gbeleyi Street is about the last lap of an extensive network of roads development in the big community of Unity Estate, Zones 1 and 2. Though just less than about 300meters in length, it is ridiculous that it has made meaningless of the combined commitment of the regimes of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Raji Fashola to making the set objectives a reality.

                A careful study of the Alimosho City Model Plan in its part of the Lagos Development Blueprint will tell the immeasurable value of this abandoned Gbeleyi project.

                The Isiba Oluwo Road that this Gbeleyi makes its southward extremity is designed as an arterial road by-pass to the Egbeda-Idimu High Way, which has become a commuters' nightmare with traffic gridlock along its parallel stretch to the Isiba Oluwo by-pass conception from Orelope Bus stop side of Egbeda to Pipeline Bus stop at Idimu side.

                While this publication is not meant to dwell into details of established facts behind the stalemate that informed the abandonment as we had earlier published, this magazine can only recommend that any re-visitation of the administration of Governor Sanwo-Olu must be an holistic re-evaluation of the project’s execution because a case of shoddy works by the contractors, particularly the drainage system, is a part of the issue the Governor cannot ignore. But the primary question is how soon would Sanwo-Olu revisit this eyesore of Folaga CDA in Idimu Town?

COVER STORY: GUERRILLA LAND WAR IN ISHERI OLOFIN; THE INSIDE STORY OF ALHAJI ADEBIMPE'S DEADLY WAR WITH OBA ISHERI OLOFIN

The Cover Edition for Vol 2 No2, August 12, 2019

The Editorial Note Behind the Scene
THE story you are about to read is yet another verity of our cultural philosophy of perspective journalism. Civics Journal came into the media industry to fill the gap in news reporting – the is deprivation of the public of news in the perspective of established facts, which is created by the ordinary convention of reportage as driven only on the four wheels of who said what at where and when was it said?

Civics Journal is positioned to operate further on this convention with application of the auxiliary wheels of journalism that naturally seek devil's in the detail of an event; the fundamental questions that probes deeper into the issues of the reportage as to of why was the issue raised in the first place and how it started.

After subjecting our many pending cover stories that foot this bill of investigative journalism to a debate of priority of preeminence to prove our individual mettle at the Editorial Board, this story of “Guerrilla Land War in Isheri Olofin” came second to the story of a Southsouth governor who literally acquired the state powers by turning every election in his State to a war of cultists and gangsters he would always conscript as his ragtag soldiers against the state authority of the military and other security agents.

But when in deeper comparism of the two stories and they were found to share similar theme of 'Artifice of a Warlord', the story of the land war in Isheri Olofin as prosecuted by one Alhaji Shamsideen Adebimpe eventually made priority parity with the initially intended story of the Don-of-gangsters governor.

But yet came the question; which should be published now for resonance with current reality of issues at stake? Two factors threw up the story of Isheri Olofin for preference. The first was our share of the philosophy that all politics is local. The second but the more important of the two was a recent questionable “Public Hearing” the Lagos State Task Force on Land Grabbers was purported to have conducted as responsive attention to the last of serial petitions by which the Alhaji Adebimpe is prosecuting his war against Isheri Olofin and its monarch.

The facts of the Guerrilla Land War in Isheri Olofin from depth of its causative origin is what you are about to read in this edition of Civics Journal. Like our promise to the public, we may not break the news, but we definitely assure all the facts behind the news.

                Enjoy your reading.