By Adeyinka Adeniran
The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Oyo state has berated Governor Seyi Makinde over his alleged failure to come up with concrete actions capable of assisting the state to fully explore its potentials in agriculture and other key sector of the economy in the last five years as this has resulted in food crisis and high rate of unemployment in the state.
Experts have heaped the blame of palpable food crisis and inflation in the country on government at all levels even as they warned that the trend might take a worse dimension in the coming years on account of lip service being paid to the promotion of agriculture, environment and security.
In a statement issued on Thursday by its Publicity Secretary, Olawale Sadare, Oyo APC posited the claim by Gov. Makinde, as contained in his recent statewide broadcast, that his government had lifted 20,000 household from poverty was not only a barefaced lie but a futile attempt to mislead the whole world when the facts available to the general public indicate that the Sustainable Actions for Economic Recovery (SAfER) was another conduit designed to hoodwink the people of the state.
“It is obvious that with a governor like Engr. Seyi Makinde, whose only interventions in agriculture and other key sectors of the economy, could only be felt in the media space, Nigeria would need a miracle to be able to feed its citizens in the nearest future because in the last five years of the PDP administration, the state government cannot bring out a single visible achievement which has a direct effect on food security or promotion of agriculture.
“Oyo has the largest land mass in the whole of southern Nigeria but we cannot boast of being the largest producer of a single farm produce or livestock. Yet, the state government is always in the media space misleading the public with fake stories of interventions, policies and programmes in the agricultural sector. Gov. Makinde got a loan of N7.6billion in 2019 ostensibly to revamp the Farm Settlements in Akufo and Eruwa but up till now, nothing has happened in those facilities.
“The same governor claimed to have sponsored dozens of youth on a modern farming skill acquisition course in Nasarawa state about five years ago but none of the supposed beneficiaries could be seen in any part of the state engaging in one agricultural practice or another even though the purported training tour cost the state government a fortune. Rather than make funds available to the Oyo State Agricultural Development Program (OYSADEP), they came up with a name change only to put up the headquarters of the Agency in Saki for lease like they did with Agbowo Shopping Complex in Ibadan.
“Also, we are using this medium to challenge Gov. Makinde to show the world what he has done with the large expanse of land belonging to Fashola Farm in Oyo. A large chunk of the facility has been converted into Housing Estate with most of the plots shared out among the governor and his cronies. But they tell keep telling the world that Makinde has revamped Fashola Farm and it is on this note we are asking them to showcase the magic done on the facility which is capable of helping the cause of agriculture.
“It is a big shape that Oyo is not exempted from the list of southern states which depend on the North to get their food supplies on daily basis. Ordinarily, the good people of the Pacesetter state should have no business lamenting the high cost of pepper, onions, yams, livestock and other food items if we had a focused and responsive government in place. While states like Niger and Borno are procuring tractors and other implements in large quantities to assist their local farmers, Oyo is chasing its own away from their farmland to pave the way for estate developers.” APC stated.
