Save Us From Economic Annihilation – Yoruba Farmers In Edo Beg Aregbesola Farmers of Yoruba origin in Edo State have pleaded with governor of the State of Osun, Mr Rauf Aregbesola, to prevail on his counterpart in the state, Comrade Adams Oshiomole, to stop the wanton destruction of their farm produce at the Okomu Forest Reserve. The group, under the aegis of Yoruba Cocoa Farmers in Area BC10, Okomu Forest Reserve, Ovia South-West Local Government Council Area of Edo State, in a save-our-soul letter sent to the governor, disclosed that they have been farming in the reserve for over 20 years. The letter originated from T.S. Adegboyega and Co. and signed by ten members of the farmers’ group and dated July 9, 2013. According to the group leader, who is also the Baale of the settlement, Mr Hassan Tajudeen, they were allocated the land by the Iyamu of Okomu and they have been paying tenement to the state government. However, trouble, according to the letter, started sometimes in 2011, when Okomu Oil Palm PLC, under the management of Graham Hefer, encroached on the farmland and perpetrated large scale destruction of cocoa plantation on the land. This act, the letter added, was challenged before an Edo state High Court in a suit numbered HIGU/1/2012 Hassan Tajudeen and three others Vs. Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc one other, in which the court restrained the defendants to stop the act of trespass on the land. The defendants however disobeyed the court order and continued destroying the cocoa plantation, using soldiers to intimidate the plaintiffs. The farmers sought the timely intervention of Mr Governor to prevent the defendants from totally destroying the cocoa plantation. It added that the pains of starting afresh for the teeming cocoa farmers would be too much for most of them to bear, saying some who had been affected either dead or on sick bed as a result of the consequences of the destruction.
Posted on: Sun, 14 Jul 2013 03:49:55 +0000
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