We will focus more on agriculture to tackle worsening food crisis — Akinterinwa

Wale Akinterinwa, a leading governorship aspirant under the platform of All Progressive Congress (APC) in Ondo state, has promised to focus more on agriculture to address the worsening of the food crisis in the state if elected as governor.

Akinterinwa, who made the promise while speaking during an interactive session with the Association of Retired Permanent Secretaries, Retired Senior Civil Servants, Ondo state chapter in Akure, said entrepreneurship, industrializing the state, setting up of more agencies, development of tourists centres among others would be given priority if allowed to govern the state.

He said; “my focus will be slightly different from other aspirants, I will focus more on agriculture, the truth is that today we are all hungry, we have the land mass, we are naturally farmers in our different communities.”

“We are going to be very intentional about agriculture, it’s not going to be business as usual, the intervention funds that we can access in the area of agriculture are huge and we are going to be very radical about it. We are going to design programmes and bring in investors.

“We are going to be very radical in partnering with the investors because the land is ours, we all know that agriculture is the major employer of labour and we have a lot of young people all over the places roaming about the streets with no employment. The truth is that if they are well encouraged our society will be better off.

“So we are going to focus on agriculture and ensure that the whole chain is addressed. We are talking about processing from farm to the market and beyond the market. We must be looking for export opportunities for our products and the government will be willing to support them.

“We will ensure that farmers don’t suffer anymore, we must address this issue of food crisis in our state. There are lots of investors who are willing to put their money into agriculture. It would be my duty to be the chief marketing officer of this state (if elected the governor) to let people know what we can offer and we cannot do it alone.

“So we are going to do a lot of promoting Ondo state all over the world and let people know that we are here to do a lot. We must position ourselves to take advantage of what the digitalized to offers.

“We are going to do a lot on entrepreneurship also, we must approach it from a different perspective. We must budget for it the way we budgeted for roads. We must create more employment through industrialization and indirectly the IGR will be improved.

“We cannot have economic development without security, we must provide a very serious adequate security in our forests, I will not be sitting down in my office to sign files, I will rule Ondo state according to the laws of the land, we will develop our women and youths and we all have a lot to offer this state.”

While, Fioye Bajowa, president of the Association of Retired Permanent Secretaries, Retired Senior Civil Servants, who spoke on behalf of other members, said the group decided elder state men and women who have seen it all, to identify the capability of all aspirants who want to lead the state.

Bajowa said; “we put this association in place to act as critical stakeholders in the development of Ondo state, we don’t want our people to make mistakes this time around and that is why all those that have expressed their interest in governing the state have been invited for this interactive session.

“What we can say about Wale Akinterinwa is that he is honest about his intention, we have seen him as an honest man, but the whole judgement is in the hand of Ondo state people.”