It is good that Governor Dapo Abiodun eventually got the Gateway Cargo Airport to a reality with a maiden commercial fight by Value Jet Airline. We salute him for having the tenacity of purpose to do what his own immediate predecessor and Senator Gbenga Daniel’s immediate successor failed to do.For all of his four years,as Governor of Ogun State, Senator Ibikunle Amosun abandoned the Cargo Airport project at Iperu, started by his predecessor, Otunba Gbenga Daniel, who in May 2005 had the vision and started the project which was meant to be executed under a Public, Private, Partnership arrangement, with minimal government financial involvement in the project .Thus, as we bask in the euphoria of ‘ a sold out’ maiden flight by government,albeit for a private Airline, it is important, and decency demands of it, that the person who cleared the bush, engaged communities over land acquisition, did all the paper work, including seeking and obtaining Federal Government approval and getting investors confidence in the project, and who actually turned the soil on the site where the runway of the Airport now is deserves his recognition. And acrimonious political ambition against an incumbent Senator should not lead to obscufication of history.
To be clear, if history was to be properly recorded the former Governor of Ogun State, Senator Gbenga Daniel, ought to have been on that maiden flight as a honoured Guest of Ogun State Government.And how much is Iperu- Abuja ticket that Ogun State was unable to give a complimentary ticket to its former Number One citizen who made the maiden flight possible with his vision
Let the story of the Gateway Airport be properly told
