Makinde reiterates commitment to agriculture

Oyo State governor, Seyi Makinde, has reiterated the commitment of his administration to agricultural developments in the state.

Makinde said this during the unveiling of the second South West Local Government Ag­ricultural Development and Mineral Resources Trade Fair 2022, themed: ‘Ajelawa 2022,’ held at the Premier Hotel, Ibadan, the Oyo State.

The governor, who was represented by his Executive Assistant on Administration, Idowu Ogedengbe, said: “Our goals as a government is to accelerate the development of all the various constituencies and all the sectors of the Oyo State economy. We are particularly desirous of facilitating even development across all our local gov­ernments.”

The event had in attendance the state commis­sioner of agriculture as well as representatives from Oyo, Osun, Ondo and Ogun states.

Makinde stressed that the presence of all the local government chairmen affirmed the state government’s commitment to agricultural development at grass-roots level.

A former Nigeria ambas­sador to the Philippines, Dr. Yemi Farounbi, said the country needed to expand the current economic situation through the use of mineral resources and agriculture.

Farounbi, who was a guest speaker at the event, maintained that, “if we really want to grow our economy, we have to do what other de­veloped countries have done.”

He lamented over-depen­dence on crude oil, saying, Ni­gerian economy could only grow through industrialisation at the grassroots level.

He said: “What I think we really need at a time like this is what I call mass industriali­sation at the grassroots so that people won’t have to migrate from the rural areas to urban centres in search of job oppor­tunities. We have to find a way of redirecting our industrial growth.

“So we have to re-orientate ourselves and this cannot be done by the government alone because the government has no business in business. What they need to do is providing an enabling environment.

“The individuals, the entrepreneurs, the people that have busi­ness with business are the ones that can do it. All that the government needs to do is to provide en­abling environments. The good roads will enable us to trans­port the products from farm to the city,” Farounbi said.