‘We have created enabling environment for more people to come to Ogun to live, work and play’

Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun, has never hidden his desire to ensure that the state maximises the inherent comparative advantage of its geographical location as the only neighbour that the nation’s commercial capital, Lagos State, has. In this interview with select journalists, he speaks on his achievements so far with regard to his vision for the state, highlighting especially his administration’s construction of a world-class airport in the state and the benefits it would bring when it becomes fully operational. The Guardian’s AZEEZ OLORUNLOMERU, was there.

Your Excellency, what would you consider as your greatest achievement so far, in line with your vision for Ogun State?
As it stands today and without doubt, Ogun State has become an investment destination of choice in Nigeria, and that is made possible because of our creative policy of exploring the inherent comparative advantage of our geographical location as the only neighbour that Lagos State has.

Lagos State is the fifth largest economy on the continent of Africa. It remains the economic capital of Nigeria and financial nerve centre, and being the only neighbour Lagos State has, we are what I would describe as the New Jersey of Nigeria. What New Jersey is to New York is what Ogun State is to Lagos State. So, we represent the overflow of Lagos.

Ogun State is 16,000 square kilometres in size. We are about four times the size of Lagos State; we have an expansive land size. Also, you can’t go to any part of the country without going through Ogun State, either by land or sea or air. So, that in itself represents our comparative advantage over other states.

We are also a neighbour to the sub-African region through the Republic of Benin. Today, you would find out that there are lots of companies, industries, manufacturers that have been in Ogun State for years. And the primary reason for that is, one, Lagos State houses the busiest airport and the busiest sea ports. They are able to bring their raw materials in from Lagos to Ogun State, process it, distribute back to Lagos or distribute to the hinterlands. But beyond that, we also enjoy a crisscross of natural gas pipelines. So, beyond the convenience of being close to the busiest sea port and the financial capital, industries have found their home here because they have access to power through natural gas. So, as an administration, when we came on board, we looked at all these factors and decided to leverage them. Our vision encapsulates a focused and qualitative governance while creating an enabling environment for Public-Private Partnership (PPP), which we believe is very fundamental to the economic growth of the state and the individual prosperity of our people.

How friendly is Ogun to investors and investments?
We are so conscious of creating an enabling environment for people to come and work, live, invest and play. So, we decided to have what we regard as our implementation pillar called ISEYA – ‘I’ for Infrastructure, ‘S’ for Security and Social Welfare, ‘E’ for Education, ‘Y’ for Youth Empowerment and Job Creation and ‘A’ for Agriculture. Through these developmental pillars, we have begun to implement our vision.

Take for instance, in the area of infrastructure, we took cognisance of the need to maximise our proximity to Lagos, and so far, we have constructed over 400 kilometres of highways. And of these 400 kilometres of highways, we prioritise the highways that connect us with neighbouring states, particularly Lagos. Today, four years and few months into our tenure, you can travel between Lagos and Ogun states and it will take you less than an hour. When we assumed office, it would take you probably two or three hours or even more. So, more people are now coming to Ogun State to live, work, hold conferences and to play because we are easily accessible.

There are several narratives in the media about your transportation policy and pattern of implementation; can you explain to us what you have done so far in this sector?
After we assumed office, we decided it was necessary to have a transportation master plan as we considered transportation as a key enabler for our various industries to thrive. We now have what we call a multimodal master plan. This master plan defined the connection among roads, rail and air transportation. We have since begun the implementation four years and few months down the road. We have built a world-class airport in Ogun State. This airport story actually started since 2006 when it was licensed as an airport. When it was approved for the state, it remained what we call a power-point airport. However, after our master plan, we decided that we must be adequately informed as to where the airport should be located and from all indications, the airport was located where it was originally approved for, somewhere in Ikenne Local Government between Ilishan and Iperu.

Why do you feel this is the best location?
The reason for this is very simple. That location of the airport represents the centre-point of Ogun State. It is easily accessible. It is joined by two major highways; Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and Sagamu-Benin Expressway. It is bound within our major plantations. It is co-located in our special Agro-Processing zone. And thus, we call that airport location our ‘aerotropolis’. That airport was built within two years. The first flight landed sometime last year. The airport will commence commercial operations sometime before the end of this year. It is built with cargo airport and passenger airport but it is an international airport. It is built to be a truly international airport, in line with global best practices. It is the airport that has the longest runway in Nigeria. Of course, the whole idea of co-location of this airport is predicated on the special agro-processing zone in such that all the entire value chains of agro-produce that would be occurring in that zone and raw materials are coming from different plantations that we have in Ogun State, be it cassava, be it cashew, be it oil palm, be it rubber, be it cotton and so many others are coming to the special agro-processing zone and are being processed, including those that need to be air-freighted in that airport to the rest of the world.

Like they say, “when you build a road it takes you from one location to the other, but when you build an airport, it takes you from one location to the rest of the world.” By this world-class international airport that we have constructed in Ogun State, the state is now open to the entire world as an industrial capital of Nigeria.

In addition to the aforementioned, we also sit on top of many natural resources. We have limestone; we have uranium; we have calcium carbonate and different kinds of clay suitable for many products. That explains why we have the largest cement factories in Nigeria, right here in Ogun State. In Ogun State, we produce the highest tons of cement. The largest cement factories in Nigeria and in Africa are actually situated in Ogun State. We have Lafarge, we have Dangote and we have others that are also springing up. But besides that, we have all the multi-nationals. We have Nestle; we have Cadbury; we have Unilever; we have May & Baker; we have International Breweries; we have Olams; we have Flour Mills; the list goes on. As a matter of fact, I always say that, “if you are not in Ogun State you are not yet in Nigeria.”

Your Excellency, this success story of your international airport is interesting, but can you further elucidate on its economic viability?
Well, like I had earlier explained, our airport is part of our multi-modal transport master plan implementation, and what the airport represents is an opportunity that allows for investors, in terms of passenger travel, to take off from anywhere in the world and land in our state. So, in the first instance, our state now becomes accessible to those that are traveling by air, unlike before when if you want to travel by air from Ogun State, you will have to go to Lagos; you will have to fight traffic congestion to access the Lagos airport.

Now, when commercial operations commence at the airport, you just have to drive to the airport within 30 minutes or 40 minutes from any part of Ogun State, board your flight and fly to whatever your destination is. That is one part.

The other part, which is the multiplier effect of this airport in Ogun State, is its co-location in an industrial zone. This industrial zone, when completed, will employ between 30,000 and 50,000 personnel. The industrial zone itself is a Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the state government and private companies.

In this instance, we have chosen an economic hub which expands daily, with such partnerships in different parts of the sub-region: Ivory Coast, Gabon, Togo, Benin Republic and so on. We have done this successfully. We are being supported by the Africa Export-Import Bank, and many others. Basically, the airport represents an enabler, not just for air traffic, but also an enabler to evacuate efficiently fresh agro-produce.

Let me give you an example. We have had investors from different countries that have come here to meet with us with the intention of setting up vegetable farms in the special agro-processing zone and airlifting fresh vegetables from our airport on a daily basis. We have been approached by-cargo companies that now want to relocate where their cargoes are being delivered to, and ship into Nigeria from where it is presently, simply because they have seen the size of our apron at the airport, which is 84,000 square metres.

It is four or five times larger than the largest cargo airport in Nigeria. These cargo-based companies have now decided that once the airport is ready, they will be flying their cargoes that are destined for Nigeria to that airport, and from our airport, they will now be trans-shipping the cargoes to the other parts of Nigeria and even West Africa. And when you look at all those that will be involved in these cargo operations in the distribution and in running of our airport from the agro-producing zone and to the ‘aerotropolis’, you can just imagine the economic impacts and the number of jobs that will be created. The impacts will also resonate in the entire economy, not just this country but the entire Africa.

With the new African Free Continental Agreement, our airport is coming up on board at the right time because with that agreement, the sub-region is now gearing up to ensure that there are no trade barriers between one country and the other. An airport like this can only best facilitate this AFTC Agreement.

With this airport, Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) has a role to play. What are these roles of the Customs Service, Nigerian Air Force (NAF) and other security agencies in this regard?
You should know that the traditional role of the Customs Service of any country is to ensure that goods are being imported into the country; that goods are allowed into the country, and their role is to ensure that necessary tariffs, excise duties are paid on those goods. In that regard, the Nigeria Customs Service has actually applied for, and paid for 100 hectares of land at the airport. They have actually begun the construction of their village at the airport. This just goes to show how much preparation is already underway. From what I understand, they will be erecting over 700 housing units and so many warehouses. So, a lot of work is already ongoing. They have been in the pipeline. The Nigerian Air Force (NAF) has also discussed with us for an Air Force Base. We are also talking to others who want to set up flying schools at the airport. Others have also come, saying that they want to set up what they call an FBO, which is a place where planes are maintained, parked and serviced rather than being taken outside the country.

You sound so enthusiastic about this airport…
This will save the country the needed foreign exchange. The amount of activities that we will be seeing in the next few months there at the airport will be massive and awesome. We are a state government but we are not willing to wait and be looking and seeking for others to come and build an airport for us. That wouldn’t have happened in our eight years of administration. So, we decided that we would make a new investment. We would de-risk the project and then, we would continue with others. That’s exactly what has happened. Today, we have received unsolicited offers from many aviation investors that are serious about taking over the airport on a concession. We are talking to them. We are so excited about the level of interest that we have seen, and this we had actually expected. That’s why we built this airport to world-class standards.

Like I said earlier, this airport has the longest runway in Nigeria; it has the best constructed runway in Nigeria, the best constructed apron in Nigeria. Our terminals are the best in Nigeria. Our airport lounge, our terminal lounge, will be the best standard in Nigeria because this is what we wanted to do and what we set out to do. So, we are excited about the opportunities these have been presented.

We have undoubtedly opened Ogun State to the whole world, and in the same vein, we enjoy railing that goes from Lagos through Ogun State and to the North. We are so concerned about cargoes that come to Ogun State either as raw materials or finished goods; those that are being imported through Lagos, whether Tin Can or Apapa seaport. We also know that besides the inefficiency of these ports in the past years, there is also a problem with the degree of traffic congestion one will go through in the ports to remove containers. This in itself affects our manufacturers and processors.

How do you address that challenge?
We decided that to further ensure that we constantly increase our ranking in the ease of doing business index, we must find a way of allowing our manufacturers who are exporting to be able to export their containers efficiently. We will be also constructing our dry port and when the port is constructed, which will be in Kajola, it means that if you are shipping goods from anywhere in the world to Ogun State, you don’t need to go through Lagos anymore. You can simply ship your goods through Kajola Dry Port, just to take the containers on the train and then come down to Kajola.

In that order, when you also want to export your goods, you will stock the container in Kajola, put them in the train and the container goes on the vessel. There will be no need for inefficiencies that are associated with trucks going in and out of Lagos ports and the menace of traffic congestion. These are some of the reforms, policies and programmes that this administration has implemented to support the over 5,000 industries that have come to make Ogun State their home. By so doing, we would be fully implementing our vision, which is to create an enabling environment for more people to come here to live, work and play, which in turn translates into individual prosperity of our people.