A governorship candidate of the Accord in the last general election in Oyo State, Hon. Saheed Ajadi has disclosed that judging from the human and natural resources Oyo State is blessed with, the state has no reason to be struggling economically.
Hon. Ajadi remarked that bad leadership is the tangible reason that can be attributed with the state’s present economic woe.
Hon Ajadi, a financial expert and an indigene of Ibadan, made this statement while interracting with newsmen in Ibadan.
According to him, God Almighty has deposited wealthy materials in fertile lands and youthful population to Oyo State saying that that the only thing that remains is the people at the helms of affairs to tap into these huge opportunities and harness them for the economic development of Oyo State.
He maintained that as long as people continue to vote for people who do not have adequate knowledge about the state’s economic dynamics and people who do not possess economic blue print while canvassing for votes the state will continue to retrogress economically.
Expatiating on the two economic opportunities the people at the helms of affairs have failed to latch on, Hon. Ajadi explained that agriculture and youth development ought to have been the central plan of any serious government in the state.
“Sometimes, i wonder why our poverty index level still high despited our abundance natural resources. For God sake Oyo state has one of the most felile land. And luckily for us, we have the land mass. More importantly is the fact that we have a population that favours farming. Our population starts show that we have the age bracket of population (youths) that are energetic and virile.
“The government of Awolowo has given us a template to work with in terms of farm settlements, the only problem is that people at the helms of affairs have refused to see the gold mine in agriculture. In the process, they have made our youths idle and consequently they have created social disorder because an idle’s mind is the devil’s workshop..
“Give it to our youths, they are hard-working. I am sure, if the government provide an enabling environment, our youths will gladly go to some of these farm settlements. They only need to set up a supervisory committee that will be monitoring their progress and pricing board that will see to the sale of tbeir produce, trust me, the government would have been able to use one stone to kill two birds.
“Firstly, we would have been able to reduce to the barest minimum, youths rascality and unemployment and at the same time the state would have been able to earn fortunes from these produce. Our strategic location to Lagos is an added ad advantage. Lagos has a huge market that is begging to be supplied with agricultural product but sadly our government has failed to see these opportunities”, he concluded.
In the area of sports, Hon. Ajadi assured that it is in his plans to return all secondary school games back to school system, where talents will be discovered at younger age and sports will be promoted from the grassroots.
According to Hon. Ajadi, “we can use sports to make money because I am a sports man. My plan is to engage youths through sports, promote their talents and fuse them together and nurture them to become prominent. I will set up junior academy where talents discovered will be trained, monitored and mentored to ensure that their dreams of becoming important figures through sporting activities come into fruition.
