Osun RAMP: Opening Rural Roads For Wealth Generation By Olayemi Olojede

Lack of accessibility caused by deteriorated infrastructure especially rural roads is a key cause of poverty in many rural communities across Nigeria, unfortunately the poor condition of the roads has also affected the practice of agriculture in many of these communities that are supposed to be the food baskets of the country.

About 30 million Nigerians currently live in isolation and lack access to income generating opportunities and social services due to insufficient connectivity and high transport cost. Most farmers have difficulties sourcing and transporting goods from their farms and taking the products to the local and regional markets.

The state of Osun, being an agrarian state is made up of large farm lands and a lot of people who are interested in farming, the residents practice both commercial and subsistence farming.
In view of this, the intervention of the state government through the Rural Access and Mobility Project(RAMP) can not be overemphasized.

Osun RAMP is a World Bank and French Development Agency assisted project aimed at supporting the national rural transport and travel policy, the national agricultural transformation agenda of the federal government as well as the quests for rural development agenda of the government of the state of Osun.

The project, RAMP 2 is to improve transport conditions and bring sustained access to the rural population through rehabilitating and maintaining key rural transport infrastructure in a suitable manner in selected Nigerian state, it is a project which became effective on 22nd November, 2013 and will be officially closed on 31st October 2020.

In a bid to make life more better for Osun rural residents, and for farmers to be able to transport their farm produce easily to urban markets, the government of the state of Osun through RAMP has completed a total number of 295km out of 307.96km rural roads currently being rehabilitated as well as additional 61km of pilot roads till date.

Osun RAMP has completed a total number of 26 river crossings including four bridges which are already in use by farmers and residents in communities such as: womonle village via owu, powerline river along oke-odo, kelebe, Osogbo among others, while a total number of 213.54km of roads had undergone mechanised maintenance in the year 2018/2019 under the first tranche of roads and other pilot roads.

It is worthy of note that through the Osun RAMP project, about 300 residents have been recruited to serve as Road Maintenance groups thereby generating employment opportunities to the residents whose job is to serve as Community-based Road Maintenance Groups for the 275.14km of roads in the first tranche and the pilot roads.

For proper supervision and close monitoring, there is also the State Project Implement Unit(SPIU) headed by the Project Coordinator, the SPIU is saddled with several responsibilities which include transforming existing GIS unit into Road Assets and Management Unit (RAMS) the SPIU has successfully updated the road network inventory system in readiness for the implementation of the road asset management system.

The project has just recently set up a mini laboratory within the SPIU to help in laboratory testing and verification of laboratory test result.

It is very clear that the state government of Osun under the administration of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola is determined to employ all means necessary to better the lives of the people and give hope to Osun rural residents.