Angst, confusion over Makinde’s policy on conversion of recreational spots to estates

The recent moves by the Governor Seyi Makinde-led government in Oyo State to convert certain fun spots and other green areas in Ibadan land to highbrow housing estates have been causing furor, STEPHEN GBADAMOSI writes.

Housing deficit is one of the major problems facing Nigeria as a country. Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, as a component of the federation, is not an exception. If this is a main problem that any government wants to face head-on, shouldn’t there be a widespread consultation with relevant stakeholders before actions are taken? This is a question that many residents of the Oyo State capital have been asking lately.

Recently, there was a report that Governori Makinde approved the award of the Yekinni Adeojo Government Residential Area (GRA) to one Messers Allianz West Africa (Nigeria) Limited under a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) scheme. The new sparked reactions and condemnation, immediately it became public knowledge.

Recall that about a year ago, the state government had also acquired the popular Trans Amusement Park close to University of Ibadan for another housing estate project. Even though public outcry greeted this development too, it appears different from what was heard about the Lagos – Ibadan expressway land acquisition in which Allianz West Africa is involved.

The report had it that “the Director General of Oyo State Investment and Public-Private Partnership Agency (OYSIPPA), Mr. Tilewa Folami, handed over the Mandate Letter of Grant to the Managing Director/CEO of Allianz-West Africa Offshore Limited, Engr. Adeyinka Owodunni, in Ibadan on Tuesday.

“According to the mandate letter, Allianz West Africa Ltd. will develop the infrastructural facilities at the 50-hectare Yekinni Adeojo GRA, Oluyole, Ibadan, using private funds and also managing it on behalf of future residents and Oyo State government for about 25 years.

“This award to Allianz West Africa is premised on the successful performance and timely completion of the Engr. Lere Adigun GRA (Basorun, Ibadan) by Allianz West Africa. The Engr. Lere Adigun GRA has become a highly sought after residential enclave for the upper middle class in Ibadan.

“According to Engr. Owodunni, the Yekinni Adeojo GRA would be a residential development that is designed as part of a master plan community to activate a satellite city on the South-East quadrant of the Ibadan Circular Road (ICR), where it intersects the newly completed Lagos – Ibadan expressway. The ICR is currently under construction.

“This estate is positioned to allow its residents easy access to multiple cities (Lagos, Ife, Ijebu, etc.) through the Ibadan circular road butterfly interchanges on the Lagos – Ibadan expressway.

“With the ongoing construction of the 110-kilometre Ibadan Circular Road and the completion of the Lagos – Ibadan expressway, a massive population influx is expected in Ibadan this decade.”

“An additional five million people is projected to migrate to Ibadan due to these infrastructural developments and the satellite cities that are precipitated. The Yekinni Adeojo GRA is a visionary and complimentary last-mile infrastructure that will organically fit into the Oyo State 2030 master plan,” Owodunni was quoted.

The report added that “Allianz West Africa will be providing infrastructural facilities, such as major and minor roads with access slabs to all plots, drainages and stream channel conduits, electrical substations and reticulation to all plots, water plant and reticulation to common areas, security – perimeter fencing, 3-barrier gate system, beautification effects – green areas and aesthetic control and administration of deeds of restrictions, among others.

“It will also have developmental control responsibilities, as part of its PPP agreement with the Oyo State government.”

Hardly had this report hit town than a private citizen, an Ibadan-born businessman based in Lagos, Mr. Ayo Mafikuyomi, came on a radio programme, claiming that a factory in which he had invested around N800 million had been seized by the state government for a proposed housing estate.

Promptly, the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) came out hard on the government in a statement primarily released to pooh-pooh the 2024 Budget proposal of Governor Makinde.

In the statement issued by APC’s Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, Oyo APC, apart from faulting most content of the Appropriation document, posted a pertinent poser about commerce and industry in the state, saying: “As if that was not enough, questions are being asked as to what success Oyo has recorded in the area of agriculture, commerce, job creation and so in the last four years. We rely on the North for beans, tomato, peppers, cow, onions, rice etc when we have massive arable land and human resources.

“Ogun and Lagos states remain manufacturing and industrial hubs; but in Oyo state, investors are being chased away with multiple taxes and confiscation of their land and properties as this was the case of one Ayo Mafikuyomi whose N800 million factory was seized by the state government recently in Ibadan.”

It is instructive that the government has yet shed light on this issue.

The dust had hardly settled when the case of three felling in the popular Igbo Agala in Ibadan came up. Igo Agala is one of the very few areas of the metropolitan part of Ibadan city that still boast of gifts of nature.

The government is said to be sitting another highbrow estate in the woods which houses the revered Agodi Botanical Garden, another recreational area of choice in the city, a development that has allegedly led to felling of tress in the area. But the government has denied using the garden for the proposed estate.

The state Commissioner for Lands, Housing and Urban Development, Mr. Williams Akin-Funmilayo, said in a statement last week that the planned estate project, Baywood Estate, would never consume the Agodi Botanical Gardens, noting that some residents of the state had confused the site of the planned estate to include Agodi Botanical Gardens.

He said while the garden sat on 9.11 hectares of land, the large expanse of 46.3 hectares of forest behind it was to be converted to Baywood Housing Estate.

“I believe that you, as journalists, are now aware of where the proposed estate is going to be sited and I believe you have seen for yourselves that trees here are still intact and they have not been brought down as being insinuated.

“Behind me is Agodi Gardens and this river divides the Agodi Gardens and our prospective estate. At the extreme there, we have the zoological garden, which is still there.”

The commissioner, who showed a survey plan of the area to newsmen, indicated that the whole expanse of land comprised the Agodi Gardens, Office of the Department of Fisheries, and the forest and that the portion that belonged to Agodi Gardens is 9.1 hectares, with trees marking the natural division between the garden and the rest of the land, while fishery department sits on 1.2 hectares of land at the corner.

“The rest of the forest is 46.63 hectares, which is now being developed into Baywood Estate. There is no directive, policy or instruction from any quarters that says Agodi Garden should be converted to a housing estate and there is no intention to alter the constructions here. So, the idea that the garden will be converted is a figment of the imagination of the people who refuse to seek the truth,” he said.

Responding to how the conversion of forest to a housing estate could impact on climatic conditions, the commissioner said: “One of the values of this estate is the preservation of these trees and that is why the name of the estate is ‘Baywood.’ So, the wood is highly significant.

“Oyo State residents should know and rest assured that the government will preserve this forest to the best of our ability, because this administration understands the implications of deforestation and its import on climate change. There might be a few casualties in the provision of infrastructure, but I can tell you that they will be re-planted.

“When this project is completed, it is going to be in a world of its own and a beauty to behold. So, I am reassuring you that the state government has nothing to do with Agodi Gardens as far as the estate construction is concerned. The area that will be converted to an estate is where we are now.

“The reality is that people cannot pass through this road freely between 7:00 p.m. and 8:00 a.m. without fear, because of the high rate of criminality around this corner and the fact that there is vast forest to escape into. Thus, the government is justified for trying to add value to the environment by providing housing instead of keeping the forest and allowing it to remain a habitat for criminals, kidnappers, and evil doers in the society.

“The government of Oyo State does not have any intention to convert Agodi Garden to a housing estate. The plan is to upgrade the garden to an international botanical garden, which will serve the people of Oyo State better than it is right now,” he said.

But his explanation appears not to have doused the tension. Many public affairs analysts and environmentalists have continued to give flaks to the government over the proposed project which they claimed would further aid deforestation and expose residents to hazards of climate change.

An Ibadan-based environmentalist, Jummy Olowookere, was on a private radio on Sunday, giving caution to the state government and asking government officials to remember that the whole world, including hundreds of representatives from Nigeria, recently gathered at the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for the United Nations (UN) Climate Change Conference, tagged COP28 Agreement, where the need to preserve the environment was discussed.

She wanted the state government to stop the tree felling activities for the purpose of siting a housing estate in the Igbo Agala groove.

Many people have also recalled that the Aerodrome area of Samonda, Sango, Ibadan was, years back, acquired by government with posh houses built on the land by people who had had connection with government one way or the other alone.

Sulaimon Ajewole is the President General of the Central Council of Ibadan Indigenes (CCII). He also mentiond the matter in passing; he said it was widely believed that the state governor, Engineer Makinde, was a listening leader, adding that he was sure he would do what the people of the state were asking for.

A social crusader, Rosalie Ann Modder-Oyefeso, speaking on behalf of the Save Our Green Spaces Group, had this to say on the matter: “In the last few days, I have read a bewildering array of misinformation concerning Agodi Gardens in Ibadan. We have been able to put together more accurate bits of information like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

“Working from the premise that there is nothing like a game to stimulate the mind, I shall place these pieces on the table and you may shuffle them around and join together through their slots, until you finally create a picture that is closer to the truth.

“The first notion of Agodi Gardens as a Conservation Forest and Recreation Area was the brainchild of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, in conjunction with Chief Akintola and Chief Akindeko. They were ably supported in this plan by other iconic visionaries of the Western Region, Chief A. M. Oseni of the Federal Forestry; Mr. Ladipo, a renowned forest conservator and Mr. Thompson from Britain, the first Director of Forestry in Ibadan.

“So, a section of Ibadan’s Agala Forest was reserved for Agodi Gardens and additional trees were brought in from several other countries and planted here. The area of Agala Forest allocated to the Forestry Department in Ibadan as a Conservation Forest of which Agodi Gardens is a part covers an area of 60 odd hectares.

“The Agodi Gardens that we are all familiar with, only covers eight hectares and is actually Phase One of a much bigger project that includes the remaining 52 hectares, as proposed by the previous governor of Oyo State, Chief Abiola Ajumobi, in 2014.

‘The full extent of Agodi Gardens land is bounded on one side by the Secretariat Road, by Ajibade Road near Coca Cola on the Mokola – Sango stretch of the Oyo road on another; and most importantly to our present area of interest, by the road that starts at the small bridge from Secretariat Road and climbs up the hill towards Premier Hotel on a third.

“It is along the boundaries with the Premier Hill road that our 200-plot-worth of forest is being rapidly destroyed by the powers-that-be. Interestingly, in the early 2000s, a former governor of Oyo State had come up with the same unfortunate idea to build a high-end residential estate at the exact location of the present desecration. A map had been drawn up and the areas marked out and plots allocated even before work had started, when this horrendous plan was discovered by the Director of Forestry. Various conservation units hurriedly joined forces and were able to nip this dastardly plot in the bud.

“Almost 20 years today, the same area of forest has been razed to the ground. This time, tragically, the plot has passed beyond the stage of maps into the heinous crime of deforestation. The location of Agodi Gardens and the Conservation Forest was chosen with good reason; specifically for its hilly nature and pervious soil; and the fact that it sits on a subterranean rock that extends from Mokola hills, including Premier Hill all the way to Ajibade road near Coca Cola.

“Under this giant underground rock run streams which drain into the tributaries of Ogunpa River around Agodi Gardens. The 60 hectares of Agodi Gardens was deliberately located on sloping terrain and conceived as a massive drain. It is where the greatest volume of run-off water is absorbed by the roots of the trees when it rains.

“I should make that past tense: where the greatest amount of run-off water was absorbed, since almost every tree in that spot has been felled and sold off already.

“With the absence of tree roots, the unimpeded torrent of water will be free now to flow downstream to Mokola, we pray, without catastrophic consequences.

“I can testify to this. Several years ago, I used to go with my partner to Dandaru River to wade in the delicious water. It was good fun. On one occasion, however, I had waded away from him and it started to rain. And I thought I had better climbed up a bit under the bridge. But the water came so fast and the gentle stream turned into an incredible raging torrent in seconds and I might not have had the chance to be writing this today, if the area boys and touts hadn’t acted fast and pulled me up to the highest ledge under the bridge. This was before they cut the trees, mind you.

“In 2014, the first phase of Agodi Gardens was launched. A very small section of the proposed plan by Governor Ajumobi to turn the entire land space into a resort centre that included Forest Conservation areas, lakes and rivers, forest walks, a green space golf course and a hotel divided into several chalets, so as not to destroy the green spaces and so on.

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“You will be able to see this clearly from the design plan at the start of this jigsaw puzzle with all its geographical boundaries clearly marked out and the section that we call Agodi Gardens highlighted in orange.

“We are now being told that we should not panic; that they have no intention of touching our beloved Agodi Gardens; and we, the gullible, have swallowed it because it is sometimes more comfortable to allow ourselves to be deceived.”

It is noteworthy that some of the arguments against these land acquisitions for housing estates are that many ordinary citizens would never be able to benefit from such projects; most of the developers are not indigenes of the state; and the debilitating effects of erosion and climate change would be on the common man.

While it is agreed that the state government has all the powers to acquire any land within the borders of the state “in the overall public interest,” the question is: Will government listen to the wish of the citizenry over this “undesirable” crave for highbrow estates?