The Edo State government has expressed disappointment and dismay over comments made by former Governor Adams Oshiomhole, criticizing the state’s agricultural reforms and feeding programs for vulnerable citizens.
In a statement signed by Crusoe Osagie, Special Adviser to Governor Godwin Obaseki on Media, the government accused Oshiomhole of spreading falsehoods on national television to score political points.
“The attention of the Edo State Government has been drawn to comments by the former Governor of the State, Senator Adams Oshiomhole, in which he disparaged Governor Godwin Obaseki’s agricultural reforms and the state’s feeding programme for the vulnerable amid other statements aimed at undermining the government’s laudable achievements,” the statement read.
The government highlighted its initiatives aimed at alleviating the suffering of Edo people, including agricultural reforms and feeding programs, and urged the federal government to learn from its approach.
“We implore the federal government to understudy our thoroughly thought-out mode of supporting the vulnerable in Edo State to fine-tune their model, which is fraught with irregularities and lack of transparency,” the statement added.
“Oshiomhole attempted to cast aspersion on the feeding programme for the vulnerable in the state, which is a thoroughly thought-out initiative that releases funds to umbrella Christian and Muslim bodies to implement the feeding programme,” Osagie said.
On Oshiomhole’s comments about the Governor Obaseki administration’s investment in agriculture, Osagie stated that Edo State is a leader in oil palm development in Africa.
“Under the Edo State Oil Palm Programme (ESOPP), 70,000 hectares of oil palm estates are under cultivation across the state. Another 50,000 hectares of land is set to be allocated to large-scale commercial farmers in the state to expand their production,” he said.
Osagie also criticized the federal government’s policies, which he said have led to low production and hunger in the land.
“For Oshiomhole, it is better to grow small farms with bare hands than to apply technology to optimize production and farm larger fields. What he also fails to acknowledge is that the hunger ravaging the land is a result of the failure of the Federal Government to tackle insecurity, particularly banditry, kidnapping, and farmer-herder clashes, which have led to low production. Farmers across Nigeria are unable to attend to their farms because of the threat of insurgents and bandits. Instead of working to fix the challenges, the government further exacerbated the suffering of the people by removing the fuel subsidy and devaluing the Naira without proper planning,” he said.
The government also criticized Oshiomhole for prioritizing partisan interests over the welfare of his constituents, saying, “He ought to empathize with his people, who are now reeling from the avoidable pains inflicted on them by ill-deployed Federal Government policies.”
