In June last year, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in Edo State to perform the groundbreaking for the construction of 1800 housing units at the Emotan Gardens in Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State. Emotan Gardens is a 70-hectare estate developed by the Edo State Government and Mixta Nigeria, a private estate developer.
Osinbajo handed over keys to the first occupant of the Emotan Gardens, Mrs. Noragbon Osaru, the headteacher of Emotan Primary School. The building was a gift to Mrs. Osaru from Governor Godwin Obaseki for emerging the second-best school administrator in Nigeria and best teacher in the state.
So far, 100 houses in the estate have been completed. Other infrastructure expected to feature in the estate are artificial lake, shopping malls, schools and police station.
Click here to watch weekly episodes of our Housing Development Programme on AIT
Governor Godwin Obaseki said the house was to commend Mrs. Osaru for her commitment to educating Edo children and encouraging other teachers in the EdoBEST programme.
Osinbajo, while presenting the keys, said he has visited Edo State to inaugurate many projects such as the fertiliser plant in Auchi and the Bénin Industrial Park.
Osinbajo urged Mrs Osaru to continue to impact positively in the lives of the pupils under her care even as he expressed optimism that the housing units would be completed in no distant time.
Obaseki said the delivery of the first building in record time was in fulfillment of his electioneering promises of creating jobs and providing affordable housing for the people of the state.
The governor said his administration started a new paradigm in providing affordable housing for citizens of the state by ensuring that 80 percent of materials used for the building of the houses were sourced locally from the state.
He said: “This is cluster one of Emotan Gardens, whose foundation you laid a few months ago. The first 100 of the houses are ready for inauguration. As a government, we have bought 10 of the houses, while about 50 of the houses have been sold to the public.
“We hope Emotan Garden will be our flagship into creating modern house style in our state.
“You will recall during my electioneering campaign I did promise that we are going to make Edo State an economic hub. I said we are going to create a minimum of 200,000 jobs in my first time in office and we expected that these jobs will be created from areas like agriculture, construction and the manufacturing sectors.
“But we realised also that housing is very key to creating jobs and that was one of the reasons why one of the first thing to do was to restructure Edo State Housing and Property Development Company.
“We reenacted the law setting it up, we got a new management and this is the evidence of the reforms we have made in that agency,” he said.
“We believed that we are starting a new paradigm in the position of affordable housing and we expect that these houses will sell from about N3m to no more than N12m and it will truly be affordable,” he said.
Mrs. Osaru, who pledged to do more for her pupils, also got a gift package of N1 million and a brand new car.
She said: “I feel highly honoured by this rare reward from the governor who promised us months ago that he will reward hardworking teachers in the state and I am so happy to be favoured by his administration that believes in merit and hard work.
“I also wish to thank the Executive Chairman of the Edo State Universal Education Board (SUBEB), Dr. Joan Osa Oviawe, who is implementing the governor’s vision in the basic education sector with a high sense of professionalism.
“I was interviewed and drilled by the officials of government who found me worthy after the assessment, to represent Edo State at the national level and I emerged second best school administrator in Nigeria.”
Osinbajo also flagged off the Federal Government school feeding programme at Eyean primary school.
