The Osun State governor, Rauf Aregbesola, has concluded arrangements to transform the state into Nigeria’s economic hub.
Under the innovative scheme, goods will be ferried from the new Osun Regional Market in Dagbolu, Osogbo, to other parts of the country at no cost to the owners of the merchandise.
Already, Governor Aregbesola has signed a memorandum of understanding with the Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) on freight services that would facilitate the project.
The Osun State government has also paid for one year rail freight services to kick-start the scheme.
The governor told LEADERSHIP that farm produce merchants, manufacturers and other business people from any part of Nigeria only have to get their products to the state capital, Osogbo, while the state government takes the responsibility of delivering? them at no cost to the various destinations in the country.
This initiative will likely see entrepreneurs move into Osun in droves just to leverage on the resultant low or zero transportation costs.
Explaining further, Aregbesola noted that the new agreement with the NRC would not only impact positively on the economy of the state but also boost revenue generation of the NRC, even as he stressed that economic integration would make Osogbo the hub of economic activities in the country.??
“I can assure you that clothing and other materials being sold in Oke Arin, Lagos State, would be sold at the same price in Osogbo. This is possible because the rail system that will take the agricultural products to Lagos would bring these materials and it would lower the price. Traders from Kwara, Oyo, Ondo, Ekiti would prefer to come to Osogbo instead of travel to Lagos to buy these items since the price would be lower here in Osogbo,” he said.
Furthermore, the partnership with the NRC is expected to facilitate the marketing of products of large-scale farming schemes under the Osun Rural Enterprise and Agricultural Programme, OREAP, which is targeting the daily N3.6 billion food market in Lagos. Aregbesola is said to have recently handed over 125 acres of farmland to farmers in Ayedaade local government area, Ago-Owu, Oyere-Aborisade, Esa -Oke, Iwo and Igbaye for the mass production of food crops. He has also vowed to renovate all farm settlements existing in the state since the time of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, under the administration’s policy of Farm Estate Services (FES), in order to bolster the new scheme.?
The governor, who stressed that 60 per cent of the administration’s programmes would be on massive food production, urged the beneficiaries of the scheme to make the best of the opportunity.
While confirming that the new agreement will boost Osun’s economy, the managing director of the NRC, Mr. Seyi Sijuwade, pointed out that the corporation had provided dedicated wagons to the state, adding that he was confident that the government would do? all what was required to optimise the economic gains that would accrue from the scheme.