In April 2021, the Oyo state government through one of her agencies; Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) announced and invites qualified candidates to apply…. The statement reads: “Oyo State Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project aims to pursue inclusive agribusiness training for empowering the youths to actively participate and benefit from emerging opportunities and transformation processes across the agricultural value chain.
“Successful applicants who are facing the challenge of unemployment will be provided with the appropriate agribusiness skills, mentorship, and business startup support via training and hands-on demonstrations aiming at attaining wealth creation and poverty reduction by building entrepreneurship capacity, creating support linkages, and added value for youths (at least 30% females).
“Given this, this project commits to creating job opportunities for the youths in agribusiness with provision to facilitate support linkages for business startups.”
It could be recall that the Oyo state government had signed a memorandum of understanding with the CSS Global Integrated Farms in Nasarawa State, to train over 3000 youths from the state on agriculture and agribusiness which gulp up millions of the state resources.
However, there are tens of Agricultural training institutes and places of higher learning in Oyo state which the state government can take advantage with lower cost and greater result outputs. Such institutions of international repute and high standards are but not limited to; International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), The Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria (CRIN), The National Horticultural Research Institute, IAR&T Institute of Agricultural Research and Training. Others are state owned institutions who’s man power could be harnessed for same derivatives of purpose are; Oyo State College of Agriculture and Technoylogy, Igbo-Ora, Aquatech College of Agriculture and Technology. It is also worthy of note that other Agricultural federal institutions of learning whose material and human resources could also be taken advantage of are; Federal College of Forestry, Ibadan, Federal College of Agriculture, Ibadan, Federal College of Agriculture, Moor Plantation, Federal College of Animal Health and Production Technology all dociled in Oyo state.
Alas the leadership in the state choose to waste the limited scarce resources of our common wealth in the state to or in far away Nassarawa state. Isn’t it glaring that those at the helms of affairs our pace setter state lacks the acumen to manage our resources judiciously?
Speaking at the launch and commissioning of Oyo State Agribusiness Development Agency (OYSADA) headquarters in Saki sometimes in June 2021, Governor Seyi Makinde said that “the Oyo State government is creating new investment in agriculture and agribusiness worth $50 million, with over 1,000 youths engaged under the first phase of the
Youth Entrepreneurship in Agribusiness Project (YEAP)”.
Unfortunately, in a recent development, it was in public domain that just a meagre number of 100 out of over 3000 participants who were sent to Nassarrawa and our collective resources wasted on could only be onboarded. This goes on to prove how this government thrives on deceit, lies, and propaganda to gainer cheap public sympathy.
It’s time the good people of Oyo state revisit and change the gears of our political administration in the state come 2023.
