By Ebi Kesiena
Ahead of the 2024 governorship election in Edo State, an aspirant on the platform of Labour Party, Prince Egbe Humphrey Omorodion says he intends to prioritise agriculture and make it a revenue spinner, a sector he said has not attracted adequate attention in the state.
He said agriculture has the potency of engaging several thousands of youths in the state, a move that will help in raising value chain in the sector and positioning the state on the pedestal of forex earner.
At a media parley over the weekend, Prince Omorodion who is the Chairman of Labour Party in UK expressed dissatisfaction that the state’s most valuable resource, manpower has been allowed to lie idle without being put into use, a situation he said would be a thing of the past with him at the helm of affairs.
Prince Omorodion promised to make use of technology to deeply entrench mechanized farming as a way of stimulating the interest of youths to adopt agriculture in order to attain sufficiency in food production and for export purposes.
According to the Edo prince, his agricultural revolution plan would see the sector subsidized in line with global practice, create partnership with local chiefs and traditional rulers on land renting as well as building processing centers where more values will be extracted from farm produce.
“I intend to go around the whole of Edo State, I will meet the elders the chiefs and the leaders and I will ask them for land to rent for a period of time.
“We will get tractors and bulldoze these lands, then give them to young people half acre an acre or whatever formula, then we create area specialization in agriculture.
“For example, the village where I come from, we specialize in pineapple production and I will make that whole area a pineapple production zone and we will have a processing factory.
“What this means is that, the moment the pineapples are coming from the farm, they will be processed into fruit juice and other values that come from pineapple.
“We will also have a marketing division that will help with exporting our goods and distributing our goods within the country so at every layer we are employing people first among the farming group”, the governorship hopeful stated.
While decrying the level of insecurity in Edo and across the country, the Labour Party stalwart said upon inauguration as governor if he wins, he will ensure immediate deployment of forensic technology, installation CCTV systems in identified flash points as well as ariel surveillance systems targeted at protecting lives and property of Edo people.
He added that his government would recruit young men and women and dispatch them into the forest to flush out kidnappers hiding trenches that has cause the people sleepless nights, he would also adopt Street To Street Security Mandate which will ensure the proper registration and documentation of residents.
He further emphasized that this among various compassionate motivations, is the driving force behind his decision to run for the position of governor to serve the people of Edo state.
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