We still retain concession rights over Ibadan circular road, says firm

A firm, ENL Consortium Limited, has affirmed that a concession agreement it entered with Oyo State Government in respect of the Ibadan Circular Road project is still legal and subsisting.

According to a statement by its lawyer, Oluseye Opasanya, ENL Consortium was the concessionaire of the 32 kilometres East End Wing of the 107 kilometres proposed Ibadan Ring Road under the terms of a concession agreement dated August 25, 2017, with the Oyo State Government during the administration of the late former Governor Abiola Ajimobi.

Pursuant to the agreement, ENL said it was granted exclusive rights to design, finance, construct, operate and maintain the Ibadan Circular Road for a period of 35 years.

The firm noted that its attention was recently drawn to certain pronouncements credited to Oyo State Government in connection with a proposal to re-award the project to another entity, in spite of the continued validity of its concession rights in accordance with the concession agreement.

It claimed that the proposed re-award of the project is unlawful and politically motivated, insisting that the move was an attempt to “expropriate the assets and contractual rights of ENL contrary to the terms of the subsisting concession agreement and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (as amended)”.

ENL alleged it had expended over N3,960,000,000 of its own private capital on the project despite the move by the current administration.

It warned that it had already initiated a formal dispute resolution proceeding in accordance with the provisions of the concession agreement.