Despite outrage and protests that greeted the building of new Akwa Ibom Governor’s Lodge in Lagos state last year, Akwa Ibom State government ignored such but went ahead in building the lodge.
The lodge whose construction started in June last year is located at 36 Femi Okunnu Street off Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi in Lagos.
Already, the old governor’s lodge located at Bishop Aboyade Cole Street in Victoria Island is converted for commercial purposes.
Akan Okon, Akwa Ibom commissioner for Housing and Special Duties told members of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriations and Finance, Friday led by its chairman, Dr. Usoroh Akpanusoh.
Okon told the members that his ministry accessed N840 million out of the N1.2 billion approved for the project in the 2017 budgetary allocation.
He said the ministry needs N1.2 billion in addition to the remaining N1.2 billion included in the 2018 budget for completion of the project in March this year.
The commissioner explained that the sum does not include finishing cost for the lodge of the original contract sum pegged at N2.1 billion.
Although the commissioner would not give details of the percentage of work at the new lodge, StraightNews observed that the project has reached 70 percent level of completion.
In August last year, the Lagos-based rights activist, Inibehe Effiong mobilised people into the streets of Uyo and protested against Governor Udom Emmanuel’s plan to build a new governor’s lodge in Lagos.
Critics opposed the project on the basis that government could renovate the old one, use the remaining money to tackle hunger and poverty back home as well as address the infrastructure deficit in the state.
In addition, they argued that with an international airport in Uyo, potential investors could fly into Akwa Ibom for a business meeting or go to the nation’s capital, Abuja, where the state has a state-of- the art governor’s lodge.
But in reaction, Governor Udom Emmanuel debunked that the lodge would cost N1.2 billion not N9.1 billion as purportedly claimed by critics, wondering if the opposition elements wanted high profile meetings with consular generals and international business executives to be held in such a dilapidated building.
“This is a government that is trying to drive investments all over the world. Will Akwa Ibom people feel proud for me to host so many Consular Generals and investors in that kind of dilapidated building?”
The governor observed, “If I can put in N1.2 billion in an asset that is worth N30 billion and then I can get adequate returns on those assets now that I don’t have so much money coming from crude oil, what is bad in that?”
