…says policy reducing unemployment, insecurity
A member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Bamisile, has praised the Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji for conceptualising farm dormitory Initiative to reignite farm settlements in the state to propel food sufficiency.
Bamisile, who is representing Ekiti South Federal Constituency II, said the programme has helped to attract youth into farming, create employment and income, reducing cases of kidnapping and banditry and gradually pushing Ekiti to food security status.
The former speaker gave the commendation, in a statement issued through his Media Office in Abuja, on Thursday.
Bamisile praised the governor for converting forests and routes infested by kidnappers and bandits into food production zone, saying this has wiped away the occasional cases of killings and kidnappings that pervaded the land in the time past.
Bamisile stated that his constituents in Emure Local Government will eternally be grateful to the governor for domiciling a farm dormitory at Eporo farmstead, an area notorious for kidnapping in the past.
He said that rather than allow a vast of land to be wasted due to terror attacks, that Governor Oyebanji had succeeded in making economic gains out of the area, where over 200 youth farmers now live and make several millions of naira at every farming season.
The federal lawmaker urged his constituents to key into the programme and make judicious use of the opportunity to enhance their lives.
“My constituents in Eporo, Emure Ekiti will continue to be grateful to the governor for turning a sprawling farmland infested by bandits into an economic hub of our state.
“The dormitory built in that area and already completed can accommodate 200 youth farmers. Most interesting is the fact that the military and police posts were located near the farmland, so that the inhabitants will have no reason to fear.
“The same feat was replicated along Ipao-Oke Ako axis that had once become a safe haven for criminals. All these are practical ways of encouraging people, which signaled that era of lip’s service to governance was over”, he stated.
Bamisile said it sounded so unfathomable that a total of 4,500 youths are now engaging in commercial farming in Ekiti, a state with preponderance of wrong perspective that only poor and uneducated individuals should engage in the occupation.
“Going by the account given by YSJ farms, a private partner in the initiative, the farmers made between N138 million and N800 million as dividends in 2024/25 farming season, with a projection to increase to N1 billion before the end of 2025.
“This is a good news to us in Ekiti. The fact that the National Bureau of Statics rated Ekiti as having the least food inflation in the country in 2025 was enough evidence that the initiative has started yielding gains”.