EXTRA: Osun speaker to declare farming days for lawmakers over food shortage

Members of the Osun assembly will be doing more than just making laws or overseeing the state’s executive and judiciary arms of government.

This is because Timothy Owoeye, speaker of the house, has given them an added responsibility of farming.

Owoeye has asked the state’s lawmakers to go into farming in order to tackle food insufficiency in the state.

Speaking on the floor of the house on Tuesday, the speaker said it is worrisome that people in the south-west are neglecting farming and are dependent on food items from other regions of the country.

Owoeye said the decision of foodstuff sellers in the north to stop trade with the south is an indication that the region may “suffer acute food shortage”.

The Amalgamated Union of Foodstuff and Cattle Dealers of Nigeria (AUFCDN) is protesting the alleged killing of its members in the south, and has imposed a ban on supply of food items to the region.

The speaker said the 26 lawmakers in the assembly would be allocated 10 acres of land each to plant food crops.

He added that Dayo Adewole, commissioner for agriculture, would be summoned to appear before the house to allocate farmlands to the lawmakers which they would pay for.

“Thursday and Friday will thereafter be declared as farming days for the lawmakers, so that they can take farming seriously,” NAN quoted Owoeye as saying.