ITESIWAJU Agenda, Day 7: A Is For Agricultural Transformation

YAYI MEANS AFFORDABLE FOOD, SECURED FUTURES

Good Morning Ogun State.

Today is Day 7 of our weekly voyage into the ITESIWAJU Agenda of the incoming Governor of Ogun State, Distinguished Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, YAYI. If ITESIWAJU is our destination, Agriculture is the engine that will drive us there. For us in Ogun State, and more pointedly for me in Ipokia Local Government, Agriculture is not a campaign slogan. It is our life. It is what our fathers did. It is what our mothers still do to sustain lives. That is why A in the ITESIWAJU Agenda stands for Agricultural Transformation.

As the great Norman Borlaug said, “You can’t build a peaceful world on empty stomachs and human misery”. And as M.S. Swaminathan rightly noted, “If agriculture goes wrong, nothing else will have a chance to go right”. A nation that cannot feed itself cannot secure itself. This is what YAYI understands.

● YAYI’S ANTECEDENT: A MAN WHO DOES NOT WAIT FOR OFFICE TO ACT

Before we talk about what YAYI will do, let us talk about what YAYI has already done as a Senator. Leadership is not about promises, it is about antecedents. While others were giving excuses, YAYI was giving tractors, farm Implements and other tools and utilities that will facilitate robust farm to market route movements for our farmers. We all saw it and we are still seeing its impact. YAYI’s historic intervention; the donation of brand new tractors and modern farming implements to farming clusters, started as a deliberate empowerment for Ogun West Senatorial District, but its ripple effect was felt by extension across Ogun State. When Ogun West produces more food, Ogun Central and Ogun East markets feel it. When our farmers in Yewa are empowered, food prices crash in Abeokuta, Ijebu and Remo. This was not stomach infrastructure. This was not handouts. It was brain and hand infrastructure. For decades, our farmers in Ipokia, Yewa North, Yewa South, Imeko-Afon and Ado-Odo/Ota were left to struggle with cutlasses and hoes, farming large expanses of fertile land with crude tools. This in turn makes productivity extremely low, cost was high, and our youths ran away from farming because it looked like suffering. YAYI understood this and changed the model. He aggregated our farmers into clusters; the modern global best practice and mechanized them. Today, because of those tractors:

■ Hundreds of hectares that were fallow in Ipokia, Maun, Agosasa, Tube, Ifonyintedo and across Yewaland are now cultivated.
■ Cost of land preparation crashed by over 60% for beneficiaries.
■ Our cassava, maize and rice farmers can now plant and harvest on time, before the rains fail them.
■ Food security in Ogun West has improved, and by extension, food availability in Ogun State has been aided.

If a man could do this as a Senator for Ogun West qnd extending the gesture to other zones of the state, imagine what he will do with the budget and executive powers of the entire Ogun State as Governor. It will be easier, faster, and statewide. That is what a man does when he understands welfare. He does not give you fish for one day, he gives you a tractor to feed your community for a lifetime.

● YAYI’S INFRASTRUCTURAL DRIVE: OPENING ROADS TO PROSPERITY

The Aremo of Yewaland knows that tractors without roads are useless. What is the use of bumper harvest if you cannot move it from the farm to the market? This is where YAYI’s other antecedent comes in; his massive infrastructural drive. We in Ipokia Local Government can testify because it was a shift away from the norms. For years, our farmers in Madoga, Itaegbe, Alaari, Vawhe, and the likes could not bring their produce out after rain because farm roads were impassable. YAYI intervened. Through his facilitation of community and farm access roads, grading and opening up of long abandoned rural roads across Ogun West, going to and fro the farm became possible again. Our market women can now go to the farm gate to buy. Our farmers now spend less on transporting a bag of garri to the market. Post harvest loss has reduced to the minimum it is not yet uhuru but a walk far from the past. As far as I know and my instinct is telling me, what we have gotten is just a tip of the iceberg. As Governor, the Okanlomo of Aworiland will do more. I am confident that YAYI will open up over 500km of farm-to-market community roads in his first term, with Ipokia LG being a major beneficiary because of our strategic border and food basket status. As it is said, “Where there are no roads, there is no prosperity.”YAYI will build the roads that bring prosperity and just as we are feeling the impacts as a Senatorial District, we will further feel more when he becomes Governor.

● WHAT YAYI WILL DO: OGUN AS THE AGRICULTURAL CAPITAL OF THE SOUTHWEST

The ITESIWAJU Agenda on Agriculture is clear, strategic, and loaded. YAYI will make Ogun State the Agricultural Capital of the South West, and he has two unbeatable cards to play:

■ Our Proximity to Lagos which will serve as a Ready-Made Market. Lagos State has over 20 million mouths to feed every single day, with less than 5% of its food produced within its borders. Who is supposed to feed Lagos?your guess is as good as mine, our dear Ogun State. YAYI understands this market strategy perfectly. Under YAYI, Ogun will not just farm, we will have a structured off take agreement with Lagos markets. Mile 12, Oyingbo, Iddo where Ogun produce gets priority. Our farmers will no longer suffer post harvest losses because YAYI will create value-chain logistics cold rooms, aggregation centers, and modern transport corridors from all nooks and crannies directly to Lagos.

■ Our Large Agricultural Lands: Our Unbeatable Yardstick. From the swampy, rice-rich lands of our coastal communities in Ipokia LG and Ogun West, to the cassava belt of Yewa North, to the arable plains of Ogun East and Central; our dear Gateway State is blessed with over 16,000 square kilometers of prime arable land. YAYI will map it, secure it, and make it productive. He will make sure jobs are provided with a sector that avails solutions to the first need of humanity.

● FOR MY HOME IPOKIA LG: WHAT THIS MEANS FOR US

This is where it becomes personal for us in Ipokia Local Government. We are the food basket and the border gateway. Under YAYI’s Agricultural Transformation:

■ Ipokia’s Lowland Rice Revolution: Ipokia LG has one of the largest lowland rice potentials in Southwest Nigeria. YAYI will turn the swamps of Gbodojego, Jiome, Whekan and Soke Togbowhe, Hausa, Agada, Akere, Vawhe Pevi and Hundo, Zigi and communities along the coastal axis into a Rice City with irrigation, improved seedlings, and milling clusters.
■ Cassava to Wealth: Ipokia LG is cassava. YAYI will establish a Cassava-to-Ethanol and High Quality Cassava Flour industrial park in Ipokia LG to stop selling raw cassava for peanuts.
■ Youth in Agribusiness: With YAYI’s Farm Mechanization Clusters, our youths will see farming as business, not punishment.
■ Border Agriculture Advantage: We will leverage our border proximity for legitimate agricultural export under YAYI, making Ipokia LG an Agribusiness Export Hub.

● CONCLUSION: FOOD SECURITY IS NATIONAL SECURITY

Permit me to end todays piece with the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little”. And as the ancient saying goes, “A nation that cannot feed itself cannot lead itself”.

YAYI stands for affordable foods. YAYI stands for welfare, agriculturally. When a bag of garri is affordable in Olodo, when rice is affordable in Abeokuta, when a mother in Ijebu-Ode can feed her children without crying – that is ITESIWAJU. That is security. Senator Adeola YAYI has shown us the trailer in Ogun West; as Governor, he will show us the full movie across Ogun State. Agricultural Transformation is not coming. With YAYI, it has already started.

ITESIWAJU TI DE! YAYI IS COMING!
YAYI TI DE!
OGUN TI TESIWAJU!
AGBE A RO’KO B’ODUN DE O!

~ Mawutin Imoleayo Abraham Nudewhenu Deji, a youth stakeholder, member, All Progressives Congress, Ogun State Campaign council for the 2027 elections and Director, Student Affairs sub committee, APC Ipokia LG Campaign Council for the 2027 elections writes from the wetlands of Crude Oil rich Tongeji Island.