35 years after, Ogbeh moved to tears at Iseyin


THIRTY-five years after the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh witnessed the supply of turbines to Okere Gorge Dam in Iseyin, Oke-Ogun, the minister was moved to tears when he saw abandoned dam.

He visited the dam as part of
his two-day working visit to the state.

He said the dam was capable of providing irrigation services to 2.8million hectares of arable lands.
According to him, the dam which is the second highest in Nigeria, ranked among the 22 dams that are in Oyo State.

As part of the visit, Ogbeh held a town hall meeting with farmers, youths, women and other stakeholders at the House of Chiefs, Parliament Building, Secretariat, Ibadan.

Ogbeh said that he served as the Federal Minister of Communication between 1982 and 1983 noting that he was at Ikere Gorge Dam in 1982 when the FG brought turbines to complete the project.

He said, "I remembered that we visited the dam in 1982 and brought the required turbines to complete the project. I almost wept yesterday (Monday) when I visited the dam in Iseyin and met the turbines lying fallow at the dam without being fixed.


"It is very sad that the dam has been idle since 1982. This is how we have been wasting our various resources that landed us in the present economic woes."
Earlier, he had visited Fashola farm, okere, International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, in Akinyele Local Government where he saw so many agricultural innovations.

The Minister lamented the increasing rate of decay in most agricultural facilities and institutes across the country.
Governor Ajimobi who was there at the town hall meeting said, "People should begin to think of the future today, think of agriculture today for our survival. Let us all work. Let us all do agriculture.

"Nigeria is not a developing nation, but underdeveloped because it is a nation that cannot feed its people. Millions of people are still malnourished. We should really start to change our thinking and the way we think. We need to restructure our value system. We don't need only physical restructuring in the country. We also need value system restructuring. The country grows based on the way its people think.



"People who love money must engage in agriculture because there is money in agriculture. for you to live eminently, you need to have money and agriculture can provide the needed money for you."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomato disease outbreak: Institute appeals for research funding

The National Horticultural Research Institute, Ibadan, has appealed for funding to carry out research and create awareness on the tuta absoluta pest on tomatoes. The Institute’s Head of Vegetable Programme, Dr Olagorite Adetula, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Ibadan on Friday that there was an urgent need to tackle the problem to save the economy. Adetula said the institute needed money to do surveillance survey of the pest/damage, ascertain the impact of the damage and proffer solution for eradicating the pest. She appealed to the Federal Government to help the institute get pheromones to lure and trap the pests and distribute to farmers. ``Spraying insecticides is not the best, the pest has high production rate, some of them can escape while spraying it and they will be resistant to the insecticide thereby causing us more cost. ``The pheromones can be used for six to eight weeks before changing it, it is very effective, the pest has short life cycle, wit...
Read more

10,000 women farmers to be engaged in ECOWAS rice project – official

Image
 Mr Richard Olafare, the President, Seed Entrepreneurs Association of Nigeria (SEEDAN) says 10,000 women will be engaged in the recently inaugurated Rice Seed Up-Scaling Project. This is contained in a presentation on the project made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Friday. Olafare said 8,000 youths would also be engaged in the scaling project. According to him, the number of women and youths represented 50 per cent and 40 per cent respectively of the 20,000 farmers that will participate in the project. NAN reports that the project is an initiative of the West Africa Seed Programme (WASP) in support of the ECOWAS Rice Offensive Programme that was inaugurated in 2014. Among other objectives, it is targeting the production of 60,000 metric tonnes of paddy rice for Nigeria by December 2017, using 1,200 certified seeds. The project is being implemented by SEEDAN in collaboration with the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultura...
Read more

Monsanto Nigeria Launches 3 Conventional Maize Hybrids

Maize farmers across Nigeria now have 3 high yielding conventional maize hybrids to choose from the DEKALB ® brand as Monsanto Agriculture Nigeria Limited launches 3 conventional maize hybrids. The launch held in Abuja on Tuesday May 17 2016 had in attendance farmers, development partners, government regulatory bodies and other stakeholders from both the private and public sectors of the economy. The launch of these hybrid seeds follows their registration by the National Committee on Naming, Registration and Release of Crop Varieties, Livestock Breeds and Fisheries in February 2016. The white maize hybrid, DK234 alongside the 2 yellow maize hybrids, DK920 and DK818 obtained registration approval for use in Nigeria after testing across various agro ecological zones on multi-location farms. The white maize hybrid DK234 with yield potential of 13 tonnes per hectare is well adapted for the Southern and Northern Guinea Savanna ecologies and shows tolerance to Maize Streak Virus, ...
Read more