The Federal Government, on Monday , lauded Governor Seyi Makinde of Oyo State over the way he handled the issue of last Tuesday’s explosion that happened at the Bodija area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
The Minister of Solid Minerals, Dele Alake, gave the commendation during a courtesy visit to Makinde at the Governor’s Office, Ibadan.
Alake said after visiting the site of the incident and commiserating with them, their families and loved ones, there is need for him to pay a courtesy call on the governor who he said had done a commendable job.
The minister said: ‘’After going through the site and going to the hospital to see the victims and to commiserate with them, their families and loved ones, there is need for me to pay a courtesy call on the governor who has done commendable job in terms of speed of his response to this unfortunate incident.
‘’Recall that I told you that the President put a phone call to him, to commend him and sympathise with him and the people of the state and the victims and also issued a statement after expressing his own sentiments.
‘’So, this is a combination of the establishment and acknowledgement of the federal government of what the Oyo State Governor and government have done. This is very remarkable. We are all impressed. Nobody wishes anybody any disaster but we wish for our people to respond commendably to any unfortunate situation.
‘’And on our own part, we immediately swung into action, but like I keep saying, we will also allow the investigative agencies, various technical agencies to conclude their forensic investigation before we make any categorical, verifiable and authentic statement on the issue’’.
When asked about the timeframe of the investigation, the minister said: ‘’Because it is a technical thing, and it requires a lot of technological gadgets and apparatus, we can’t out a time frame on it, but I can assure you in terms of the speed which they have started and are going about it, it will be shorter than you think
‘’But, of course, we are not going to sit on it, this is not a kind of report that anybody will sit in and this is not a kind of government that will sit on any panels report or any investigative analysis, it will be public documents and will be kept abreast of it.
”The president has promised to do anything in his power to give something to victims. And don’t forget I also told you that he is drawing from the experience of all we had, on a larger magnitude in Lagos in 2002 – the Ikeja cantonment blast, when our current president was the governor and I was Commissioner under him then. I knew what we faced, so drawing from the experience, of course at that time it was the state government that bore the brunt of it and you know that casualty.
‘’So, we are drawing from a wealth of experience in approaching all of these things. So, it will be meticulous, authenticated, efficiently implemented in whatever the report says’’.
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