2nd Anniversary: Oyo State Governor commissions multiple Projects

The Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde  has kick-started the activities to commemorate his second year in office with the commissioning of projects around his four cardinal areas including agriculture, education, infrastructure and transportation sectors.

The projects, commissioned on Friday, were among the others slated for commissioning within the next one week across the various zones of the state.

As part of the activities for the Anniversary, a Jumat service was held at the Central Mosque, Oja’ba, Ibadan, where the Deputy Governor, Rauf Olaniyan, and other top government functionaries represented the state government.

Governor Makinde commenced commissioning with the flag-off of an agribusiness initiative: Start Them Early Programme (STEP), being executed his government, in partnership with the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA), Ibadan, towards redirecting secondary schools students to agribusiness skills.

The symbolic commissioning took place at Methodist High School in the Challenge area of Ibadan, the state capital, where the Governor also toured the crop field, poultry, fish pond and the goat and farm exhibition stand.

The ceremony was witnessed by the Director-General of IITA, Dr Nteranya Sanginga and the Deputy Director-General of IITA on Partnerships for Delivery, Dr Dashiell Kenton, who said the partnership between the state and IITA has remained the best so far.

They described it as an example for the Federal Government and other state governments to emulate in order to achieve food security.

It was gathered that the state government, under Makinde, had approved US$1.2million dollars to kickstart STEP in six secondary schools across various geopolitical zones of the state, while IITA has been providing technical know-how.

Governor Makinde noted that the programme was introduced into secondary schools, to forestall future security challenges, saying young people must be encouraged into agriculture because the present generation of farmers are ageing.

He stated further that the phase two of the project would also be executed in another set of six secondary schools that would be selected across geopolitical zones of the state in order to encourage young people into agriculture.

Also on Friday, Governor Makinde commissioned a model school building at Muslim Grammar School (Junior), Odinjo, Ibadan.

The edifice, which was valued at N137,858,709.97, has 10 classrooms, 16 toilets, sick bay, science laboratory, library, principal’s office, assembly hall, and computer room.

The Executive Secretary, Oyo State Universal Basic Education Board, Dr Nureni Adeniran, said 28 sets of teachers’ furniture, 150 pairs of students’ furniture, functional borehole with two tanks and stand, fence, and security house were also provided for the school.

Also at the Oyo State Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, Governor Makinde distributed nine new buses, commissioned an upgraded staff clinic and kicked off a cervical screening programme, as part of activities to commemorate his second anniversary as Governor.