By December 2022, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has assured the timber traders that the planned relocation of sawmillers of Oko Baba in Ebute Metta, Lagos Mainland, to a Agbowa in Ikorodu will come to fulfillment.
Sanwo-Olu gave this assurance on Tuesday during his tour of Agbowa-Ikosi Timberville in Ikosi-Ejirin Local Council Development Area to inspect level of work done on the site.
Sanwo-Olu, who was joined by his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat, and the Commissioner for Physical Planning and Urban Development, Idris Salako, also inspected a 1,500 tons per hour brickette plant built on the site by Lagos State Waste Management Authority.
He said, “This project has been on for years, but we are happy that our own government has brought it back. We have invested a lot of resources to be able to bring it to a usable level. Part of the facilities we have put in place for the potential Oko Baba saw millers that will be moving here is 160 units of two-bedroom flats that have been completed. We also have offices in their various shades that have been built. The other amenity built on this site is a brickette plant facility which will be managed by LAWMA.”
“The leaders of Oko Baba Sawmillers’ Association are excited and are willing to relocate to the site. The ship piles where ships will be berthing have been done. What is left is to clear the trailer path for the saw millers, and put up a police post and a fire service. In this regard, we are making additional funding available to the contractor to ensure that before the end of this year, we all should sing Hallelujah and bring everybody down here. It’s been a very long journey, but our administration is committed to bringing the long wait to an end.”
Earlier, the President of the Lagos Mainland Sawmillers Association, Alhaji Abdul-Ganiu Onikeku, noted that the Timberville would have been completed but for the disagreement over the design of the project with the previous government.
“All of us are happy this project has been revived by Governor Sanwo-Olu after many years it was abandoned. One of the reasons we did not agree with the previous government is that the design was not done according to our agreement. This has been reversed and we have our input in the new design,” he said.
