• Says out of 30 tractors purchased by Akeredolu, only one now available
• Vows to tackle food insecurity with all-year-round farming

Ondo State Government has said that no fewer than 1,600 solar-powered street lights and 54 boreholes have been approved for installation and drilling across the three senatorial districts of the state.

According to the state government, the facilities, when completed, will enable rural dwellers have access to portable water as well as illumination, stressing that construction of 20 kilometers roads had also been approved in each of the 18 local councils of the state.

Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Community Engagement, (Ondo Central), Oluwafemi Fadairo, revealed this while speaking with newsmen at the Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Correspondents’ Chapel during a programme tagged “The Platform’ in Akure, the state capital.

Fadairo said that Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa had been engaging with communities to identify their needs and in turn execute the projects for them.

The governor’s aide, who stated that the identification and collation were done alongside fellow Senior Special Assistants, Ogunsakin Andrew (Ondo South) and Bode Obanla (Ondo North), maintained that Aiyedatiwa is determined to invest at the local level to boost farming activities and food security.

Fadairo added that with the pedigree of work going in the state, the people had been endeared to the governor with his victory certain in the forthcoming off-cycle governorship election.

Meanwhile, the state government has disclosed that out of the 30 tractors purchased by the late Governor Oluwarotimi Akeredolu for farming activities in the state, only one is now remaining after the machines were sold to individuals outside the state at subsidised rates.

According to the Commissioner for Agriculture, Olayato Aribo, many of the private individuals who bought the tractors were yet to pay for them.

Aribo, who stated the only tractor in the state was not functional, said that the state government had employed the services of a private firm to clear farmlands for mass production of food to tackle food insecurity in the state.

The commissioner, who spoke during a media briefing at the NUJ Secretariat in Akure, the state capital, said the forests along dams and water bodies were already identified and would be cleared and prepared for cultivation of grains and vegetables.

He said that the state government had trained youths, women, and farmers on modern farming, and the cleared land would be allotted to them to grow rice, maize, and vegetables.