The Elerio of Erio Ekiti Oba Oluwadare Bamigbade Okiji 111, has express displeasure over the way government abandoned large portion of land taken from the community since 1963
Elerio while speaking with our reporter who visited him in his domain lamented the negligence of the government in the area of proper utilization of landed properties taken from communities under the pretence of Agriculture
According to him “ the government during the era of Akintola/ Awolowo they came and took many hectares of land from our fathers with the intention of using it for Agricultural purposes and since the land has been abandoned, nothing is being done on it
He explained further that , “ recently government pfficial again came to acquire lands at a cheaper rate from people with the claims that they want to use it for dam and fishing purposes, and the same thing is happening, infact they claim they have spent hundreds of millions but what is on ground is nothing to write home about”
“ I won’t support them taking lands from us under the pretence of using it for Agriculture again, if they want to do anything for us they should do something meaningful, we have lands that can accommodate Federal University of Agric Technology, processing company or any other companies that will enhance development if those things are in place, in this community many of our children will not be going to the city in search for Job because the Job is already here for them and the town will grow faster and better” he said
“ We are predominantly farmers , se produce Rice, Tomatoes and Yam in a very large quantity, in Ekiti it is only igbemo Ekiti that can near us when it comes to rice production , in fact in those days our community is the only community that has Rice processing machine, people from different communities use to come to us to process their rice so if the government want to do anything to assist in enhancing our farmers for more output we are ready for that but I won’t support taking our land again for agriculture.’
