It’s wonderful however not stunning: Ogun underneath Dapo Abiodun, boardroom guru and enterprise mogul, has been taking the enterprise of social engineering extraordinarily severely. Significantly within the final couple of days, the Gateway State has been within the information for constructive issues, with the critics of the governor habitually motivated by sheer partisanship utterly shell-shocked amid their accustomed mischief. Solely not too long ago, shortly after reinventing diplomacy and acquiring the Federal Authorities’s permission, the governor flagged off the reconstruction of the 70-kilometer Abeokuta-Ifo-Ota-Lagos Expressway, with a pledge to finish it in 18 months. The highway had been uncared for for over 20 years, and Abiodun’s earlier requests for approval to reconstruct it had been sternly rebuffed. However he wouldn’t take no for reply. And so work has now begun in earnest on the second busiest highway in Nigeria, the highway which connects Abeokuta and its hinterlands to Lagos State, and hyperlinks Ilaro in Ogun West to Sagamu in Ogun East via the Sagamu-Interchange-Papalanto-Ilaro highway, and which on the Ota aspect connects the Sango-Atan-Owode-Idi-Iroko highway, main to frame cities and the Benin Republic. The highway, because the folks’s Governor himself acknowledges too nicely, “serves as a vital artery for quite a few industrial hubs in Ota, together with the Lafarge Cement Manufacturing unit, Ile-Ise Awo, numerous faculties, and better establishments. The communities alongside this hall are densely populated, and the highway’s strategic location has a big influence on commerce and financial actions.” As a transport union chief, Taofeek Sokoya (Danku), famous: “Presently, we take about 5 hours to get to Ota from Ita Osin. When this highway is accomplished, it should solely take 45 minutes.”
Past roads, the airport metropolis within the Remo axis of the state, simply Nigeria’s greatest and essentially the most strategic, is nearing completion, and you can’t blame the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) for heightening work on its N73bn Zonal Workplace and Coaching College on the Gateway Agro-Cargo Worldwide Airport. The airport lies throughout the airport metropolis, along with an export processing zone. In one other growth, the Nigerian Navy, buoyed by the continuing large development works in Ogun State, moved in shortly to acquire 100 hectares of land for its proposed dock yard, a facility for which the governor cancelled any cost in view of the nationwide safety imperatives. On the agriculture aspect, the Abiodun authorities is solely in a category of its personal. Governor Abiodun not too long ago flagged off the harvest of the 200-hectare rice farm at Magboro in Obafemi Owode LGA of the state. In simply three months, the farm cluster yielded 1,400 tonnes or rice. Projected to usher in N1bn in income each three months, the mission will now be scaled as much as assure income within the area of N10bn-N25 billion.
The critics really spun a false narrative on this laudable mission, claiming that it’s really the initiative of a sure Alhaji Bello Zabarmawa from Kebbi State. PM Information ran this pretend information with out the slightest prick of conscience. But, opposite to that piece of junk journalism, the a lot publicised rice harvest by Governor Abiodun is actual, and the federal government’s mix harvester was on responsibility when the Governor referred to as! The stated particular person and his colleagues from Kebbi have been the truth is extraordinarily excited to see the harvester, saying that that they had by no means seen one earlier than, not to mention use it for rice harvest. The World Financial institution-assisted mission meant to make sure the elevated participation of the personal sector within the financial growth of Gateway State is the brainchild of the Ogun State Financial Transformation Venture (OGSTEP). Alhaji Bello and 199 different farmers have been sensitized and aggregated into ten teams which constituted the rice cluster, and the federal government supported them with 65 per cent of the price of land preparation/mechanisation, whereas they contributed the remainder. By some means, underneath junk journalism, Alhaji Bello who farmed only one hectare of rice grew to become “the proprietor” of this 200-hectare mission and the 199 different farmers within the cluster, comprising Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba farmers, have been utterly omitted! The federal government which offered the land, segmented the farmers into one-hectare heaps, and offered pesticide, grants and loans was pilloried for mendacity concerning the mission!!
After all, the critics aren’t ignorant. They know that what authorities typically does in enhancing agribusiness is present a clement setting for public-private partnership, as within the days of Chief Obafemi Awolowo who arrange farm settlements and offered the farmers with the wanted instruments, together with residences. It’s, to deliver the problem updated, what Kebbi and Ogun states have accomplished. But the naysayers managed to provide you with a pretend story, making a single particular person the “actual proprietor” of a public-private partnership mission involving 200 people, and for which the Abiodun Authorities offered 65 per cent funding, to not discuss of tehnical help. Character assassins can’t assist themselves, can they?
Governor Abiodun’s farm clusters are something however “audio.” Go to Ikenne zone and see if you don’t discover the next cassava clusters: Ibukunoluwa Farmers Cooperatives I & II (Akaka), Evergreen Farmers (Ibafo), Bethel Agro Allied Farmers Cms (Lukosi), Mosimi Farmers Affiliation (Moro), and Ona Ara Farmers Affiliation (Ikenne), whereas there are rice clusters in Ayiwere/ Ogboloko and Magboro. In Ijebu zone, go to Idekan Apoje, Omu, Asejere, Ojowo and Ijebu Igbo, and see if you don’t discover the Extra Agro Group 1-7, N-Energy Cooperative Group 1-5, Agbegbemi -Yewo Farmers Cooperatives, Agberapo Cassava Farmers Group 6, Recreation Changers, and the Agbe-Parapo Farmers Ass. 1-5 clusters, with the final one being a maize cluster. In Ilaro zone, you could have the Ijomo Vegetable Group 3&5, Ijomo Farmers Group 1 & 4, Vegetable and Fruit Grower Affiliation 1 – 3, Irewolede Cluster I Maize, Araromi Group 1, Ife Cluster Maize I & II, Ore- Ofe Cluster I & II Omoluabi Farmers Clusters, and they’re positioned in Awin/ Odanpopo/Ijomo (tomato), Ijomo (groundnut), Ayetoro (horticulture), along with the maize clusters in Eggua, Imeko, Ayetoro, Igbogila and Iwoye Ketu.
If the critics are already mad with rage over the rice harvest, what is going to they do when the harvesting of cocoa, groundnut and cassava begins? Leap right into a lagoon, arguing with the waves? They go haywire any time they hear good issues about Ogun State, intent on discrediting any motion of Authorities. However what they achieve doing is merely promoting their hollowness. In any case, if you’re a employee in Ogun State, you may take Governor Abiodun’s promise throughout a current assembly with the management of organized labour to the financial institution. Lauding the employees for being instrumental to the speedy financial progress within the state, Abiodun stated Ogun State wouldn’t take second place within the implementation of the brand new minimal wage. His technique: “I’ve instructed my group that we must always roll up our sleeves: we must always work as onerous as we are able to with out placing undue stress on our folks. We needs to be inventive, extra environment friendly, block loopholes, and enhance our income in order that we are able to afford to pay the brand new minimal wage comfortably.”
In Ogun, it’s one excellent news after one other. And the most effective is but to come back because the Governor mobilizes the populace to take Ogun to the subsequent degree. Because the Indian author, Rohini Nikolani, places it: “We can’t be mere shoppers of excellent governance, we have to be contributors; we have to be co-creators.”
Akinmade is Particular Adviser on Media and Technique to Governor Dapo Abiodun of Ogun State.
