That people may feed well in Oyo State

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That people may feed well in Oyo State

Tuesday, 07 September 2010

Oba Jacob Oyerogba Oyewole, The Olu of Igboora A man who is hungry can easily get angry. The Alao-Akala administration seems to be aware of this, hence the attention given to the agricultural sector of the state economy, report Femi Olukunle and Dapo Falade.

THE holy scripture makes us understand that the first vocation of man on earth was farming and unarguably, it a vocation that is vital to man’s existence as without food, no living thing can survive. So, for the continued existence of man, God gave him the task of tilling the earth in order to feed himself.

In the good days gone by, agriculture was very popular in Nigeria as it was the main stay of the nation’s economy. In the old western region, the administration of the sage, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, performed a lot of wonders with the proceeds from agricultural produce.

It was fromt the proceeds from agriculture that cocoa house, which is the first sky scraper in Nigeria, was erected, the Liberty Stadium which is first of its kind in Nigeria, the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), the chain of industries both in Ibadan and Ikeja in Lagos which are now being controlled by the Odua conglomerate, free education for school children, provision of good roads and other infrastructure and the first radio and television stations in Africa were all provided for the people of the Western region from the proceeds of their sweat from the farm which was expertly coordinated by the economic wizard, Pa Jeremiah Obafemi Awolowo and the wise people in his potent cabinet.

It is, however, very unfortunate that the discovery of crude oil in commercial quantity sent wrong impression to the people of the Western region as well is the entire federation that quick and easy money could be made from oil. Consequently, all the farm settlements were abandoned while those who should be providing food for the nation to eat and sell became gatemen in companies in urban centres.

This unfortunate trend has become an emblem on the nation’s garment as the cocoa fields in the West got withered, the palmoil plantation in the East became a forest while the groundnut piramid in the North vanished into thin air. Consequent upon this, Nigeria became dependent on other serious nations that know the importance of food security, and who understand that a cut in the chain of food supply is a veritable weapon of war. It is a national embarrassment that up to this time, Nigeria, as a nation, has not been able to retrace her steps to the good old days of agricultural prowess.

However, since Nigeria is a federation, and each state is expected to take good care of its indigenes, the administration of Otunba Christopher Adebayo Alao-Akala took the bull by the horn by re-oiling the agricultural machinery in Oyo State. The verification tour of the state government’s success story in the agricultural sector revealed that truly, so much has been achieved by the administration of Adebayo Alao-Akala.

Chief Ezekiel Ojebisi, the Baale Agbe (coordinator of farmers) in Ibarapa East Local Government, told the Nigerian Tribune that “former administrations in the state tried their best for us, but the present government is exceptional.” He said that the people of Oyo State now have food to eat because we plant our crops as at when due and the administration of Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala is providing us with the necessary tools.”

Chief Ojebisi told the Nigerian Tribune that farmers were given plowing machines in all the local council areas in the state. “We have our own here and all members of the association as well as the entire people of Ibarapa East have access to it.” The Baale Agbe said further that his members were, as at the time of this report, awaiting the delivery of fertilizer that was to be supplied to his members in order to aid the healthy growth of their crops.

Aside from this, Chief Ojebisi disclosed that agriculture loans for his members were being processed and that it had reached an advanced stage. When asked the steps that he and his people were taking to ensure food security, Ojebisi said, “I can assure you that we will ensure abundant food production. For example, following the recent strike action by the Hausa pepper sellers, the state government provided us with pepper seedlings and these we have planted, and they are growing well. “With the support given to us by the Oyo State government, by the grace of God, we will not witness any pepper problem in the state again,” he concluded.

The serious attention given to the development of agriculture informed the establishment of a full fledged College of Agriculture in Igboora in Ibarapa Central Local Government Area of the state. The siting of the school in Igboora, aside from giving a boost to agriculture in the area in particular and the entire state in general, has also assuaged the clamour of the people of the area for the establishment of a tertiary institution in the area.

The Olu of Igboora, Oba Jacob Oyerogba Oyewole, told the Nigerian Tribune that, “the present government has been good to us in this community. So far, I am yet to see Governor Alao-Akala’s bad side; he gave me a car and also established a College of Agriculture for us. Since the establishment of the college, our socio-economic activities in Igboora and its environs have improved. Many of our youths are now employed and we have many youths coming from neighbouring communities to be trained in the college. So we are very grateful to the governor for remembering us here after so many years of neglect.”

The monarch, while stressing the basis of his gratitude to Governor Alao-Akala, said,” some people were against the establishment of the school here but the governor insisted on siting it here, and as you can see, the school is functioning well. We are happy that many of our people are gainfully engaged in the college aside from the numerous students who acquire knowlege there.”

One of the buildings at Fasola Farm Settlement under rehabilitation. When the Nigerian Tribune got to long abandoned Fasola Farm Institute, it discovered a massive rehabilitation exercise that was being executed by the Alao-Akala administration. The farm, which is a training institute for those who want to go into cattle rearing and poultry, had been long abandoned and all the structures there had been beaten by weather while termites had made a delicious meal of the frames of the windows and doors of most of the buildings.

Aside from this, the roofing sheets had worn a thick coffee colour while the paints on the walls had faded. The toilet system in the buildings was the old time bucket system which a man carried at night when it was full on contract. In a nutshell the structures were not inviting at all to anyone who would like to be a resident farmer or an apprentice.

The structures were in three different categories. There are some for the junior staff, some for the middle level officers while the structures for the senior staff are so tasteful and can be compared with rooms in a five-star hotel. The Nigerian Tribune learnt that the Western Regional government of Chief Obafemi Awolowo erected the structures at the institute in 1943, and had been left to rot by successive administration in Oyo State.

It was further learnt that the struggle for ownership of the institute between man, rodents, reptiles and termites made the Alao-Akala administration to decide to rehabilitate the institute. According to our guide who was a middle level officer and who did not want his name in print, when Governor Akala promised to rehabilitate the farm settlement, the people of Fasola community disbelieved because they thought that if government removed the ancient roofing sheets, it would spell doom for the institute as they would not be replaced with new ones; but the people were assured that Governor Alao-Akala would not renege on his promise to inject new life into the farm settlement.

As at the time that this report was being compiled, the Oyo State government had almost completed the rehabilitation exercise at Fasola just as a similar exercise is on-going at Ilora farm settlement. The roofing sheets have been replaced with long-span roofing sheets whose brown colour matches the colour on the walls of the structure in such a way that makes living in the settlement a pleasure.

Aside from this, the Deputy Director, Livestock Services, Poultry Investigation Centre, Fasola Farm Settlement, Mr Oladimeji Oladokun Ojo, told the Nigerian Tribune that the 67-year-old farm settlement had died before it was injected with new blood by Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala administration in August 2008, when it resuscitated the settlement with N33 million.

“Essentially, the settlement is a breeding farm. We produce day old chicks for the members of the public at subsidised rates. We purchase parent stocks and when they produce eggs, our hatchery is here to incubate the eggs and subsequently hatch them on the 21st day.

“Currently, we have 50,000 eggs that are being incubated in our hatchery and the birds are already peeping.” Mr Ojo said that for the current project on the farm, the Oyo State government had approved 4,400 breeders for the farm, saying that the consignment got to the farm on January 1, 2010. “The breeders produced what we call the golden eggs on May 26, 2010, and from then, they have been producing”.

He informed the Nigerian Tribune that following the good performance of the birds, the centre had embarked on hatching exercise while the first batch of eggs, which were 4,459, got set on July 22.

The Director said that the farm which sits atop over 1,000 hectares of land had a large room for expansion, and that it suffered a lull for a period of time until 1997, when it came back to life after several years of neglect, but that the Alao-Akala administration has brought back its lost glory with the N33 million released in August 2008 for its operations and the rehabilitation works that was going on its structures.

The farm settlement, which is a training institute, was training the students of Ladoke Akintola University and those from Emmanuel Alayande College of Education who were on internship as at the time of this report.

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