Edo State Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, on Tuesday, led members of the State Executive Council to inspect the ongoing construction of the agricultural hub located at Airport Road, Benin City, after the EXCO approved the development of a veterinary clinic at the hub.
On the governor’s entourage are the Secretary to the Edo State Government, Osarodion Ogie Esq.; Chief of Staff to the Governor, Osaigbovo Iyoha; Commissioner for Agriculture and Food Security, Steven Idehenre; the Commissioner for Communication and Orientation, Chris Nehikhare and the Special Adviser on Media Projects, Crusoe Osagie, amongst others.
Obaseki, who addressed journalists after inspecting the facility, said, “We have no reason not to do more in the area of ranching and goat rearing in Edo North where we have more lands or do more research in cassava.”
Reaffirming the government’s commitment to building and strengthening institutions in the state, the governor said, “We realized that in the best part of 40 years, government didn’t invest in its own infrastructure as civil and public servants didn’t have space to work. It was not good at all for the morale and productivity of the civil service and the output of government.
“At the Executive Council meeting today, we discussed and gave approval for a veterinary clinic as part of our agricultural eco-system and the EXCO made a decision to come and see the agricultural hub.
“We took a deliberate decision to invest in infrastructure of government which was why we built the State Secretariat to house over 3,000 civil servants. Most ministries are located there. We also decided to build specific hubs. We clustered agencies and ministries focused in a particular area like agriculture.”
He continued: “All the agencies related to agriculture like the Ministry of Agriculture, ADP, Forestry Commission, Edo State Oil Palm Production programme office and other offices for programmes we run with multi-lateral agencies will be here, bringing all together in one location. We decided to adopt this premise. It has rooms for experimental farming and research.
“We have a main building with 84 offices in different configurations. We have the old offices which we are refurbishing with 34 offices to house the Commissioner, Permanent Secretary and other top officers of the Ministry.
“We have a training facility for continuous training and research and have areas for mechanization as we refurbished our mechanization yard for people to see the partnership in terms of mechanization.”
The governor further noted, “We are upgrading all the experimental farms. We have done a lot in terms of our broiler and layer section, as well as fishery, and piggery. The Ministry will be testing new areas of research and doing some seed multiplication to help farmers across the State.
“It’s a total revamp of how we are approaching agriculture in Edo State. The important thing is to have the infrastructure that will assist and help officers and workers to be productive. These facilities are different and separate from the training facilities in the colleges of agriculture that we are building across the state.”
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