Adebayo Adenrele
…urges Youths to embrace agribusiness
Governor Biodun Oyebanji of Ekiti State has assured farmers whose farmland and produce were affected by the Ekiti Airport project that the state government would adequately compensate them.
Oyebanji gave the assurance on Friday, when he met with the aggrieved farmers in his office in Ado Ekiti.
While assuring the farmers that government would work out proper compensation for them, he appreciated them for not resulting into violence in a bid to express their grievances, adding that government was not unmindful of the fact that the farmland was their source of income.
In his words, “Let me first thank you for the step you took, you did not fight, you only resulted to a peaceful protest and I’m very happy about that. What that is teaching us is that each time we have disagreement, we should not destroy things, we should sit down together for dialogue.
“This matter is not difficult, what you are saying is not that you don’t want to cooperate with government to develop that place, you are only saying your right should be given to you, I have heard you. We will look into it and we will see how we are going to go about it because government may not be able to pay everything at once but we will sit down with you and work out how to pay it in batches so that everybody will get paid”. The Governor said.
Earlier in his remark, the Edemo of Igbemo Ekiti, Chief Ojo Awe who spoke on behalf of the aggrieved farmers, thanked Governor Oyebanji for granting them audience, stressing that the Governor is indeed a compassionate leader who care about his people.
While urging the Government to address their grievances and pay them their compensation, chief Edemo lamented that the farmers in the nine affected communities whose lands were acquired for the airport project, have lost huge amount of money they invested on the crops.
In a similar development, Oyebanji said that his government would expedite actions to encourage youths in the state to engage in agricultural business to help boost the state economy and the food security agenda of his administration.
Oyebanji stated this on friday while on a working tour of some agricultural projects in Ado- Ekiti.
He said he was impressed with the resolve of some youths to embrace agriculture full time, stressing that they would one day become employers of labour.
The project sites visited by the Governor include: The Livestock Development Centre, which provides platform for the Ekiti Broiler Production Scheme; A-Bamsil Industrial Factory , a palm kernel processing plant; and JMK Rice Mill, said government alone cannot fund agriculture, hence, the need for improved public, private partnership to reposition the economy of the state.
He said his administration would build platforms and institutions aimed at collaborating with private sector players to open up space for Ekiti people to apply their expertise in the drive to ensure everyone lives well.
According to him, “Part of our plan is to encourage our young ones to go back to farm. The Broiler scheme for our youths is a pilot scheme and I’m so impressed that our young ones are now showing interest in agriculture and it speaks to one of our agenda on agriculture, job creation and youth development. And by God’s grace, once this one is stabilized, we intend to expand it, the beauty of this project is the fact that government will hand-hold them through the whole process of production.
“There is also a guaranteed market to off-take from this. Once they master what they are doing, they will be given a pen of their own that will belong to them, from which they too can employ labour and make money and it speaks to our shared prosperity agenda.
“We have to accept the fact that government alone cannot do everything and for wealth to go round and for jobs to be created, there must be platforms and institutions collaborating with private sector to open the space for many people to do a lot. What we are doing today is just one of the interventions in the agricultural sector, we are going to do this in other sectors to ensure that we get platforms and institutions and policies that will allow everybody to plying their trade in Ekiti State to do well and we will remove all the inhibitions towards doing business in Ekiti State.
“So, it is a policy that we have now agreed on. We have spent the last six months to understudy and understand the problem in that sector because, we want to intervene from an informed perspective, and we are not doing trial by error.”, the governor added.
Conducting the Governor round the JMK Rice Mill, the General Manager, Lanre Solaja expressed his appreciation to the Governor for the visit, adding that the mill has the capacity to produce 160 metric tons of rice per day, when fully operational.
The Managing Director of A-Bamsil industry, Idowu Owoyomi, who said the factory is capable of refining 250 metric tons of palm kernel, highlighted some of the products the factory is capable of processing to include cooking oil, cosmetics, oil for perfumes, soap among others.
