Oyo State Governor Seyi Makinde’s aide and his immediate predecessor Abiola Ajimobi’s ex-aide on Monday engaged in a social media war over the alleged conversion of 26, 000 hectares of forest to personal use by some officials of the Ajimobi government.A former Speaker of the House of Assembly and current Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr Kehinde Ayoola, took to his verified Facebook account and wrote how ex-public officers converted the forest to personal use.
Ayoola wrote, “On August 16, my second day in office, I invited directors in the ministry to brief me. You know, just to get a hang on things. It was while I took on the forestry department that I got a shocker about how the last government pillaged our forest resources.
“They just awarded prime forest land to themselves.
“For the records, Oyo State has nine forest reserves. I was told they took 6,000 hectares for themselves at Gambari Forest Reserve.
“At Opara Forest Reserve, he sliced off 20,000 hectares. What makes these acquisition reprehensible, and environmentalists and conservationists will agree, is that forests are very vital in the fight against global warming and its attendant problem of climate change.
“Of course, with the concurrence of Governor Seyi Makinde, I have revoked the illegal allocations.
“We shall collaborate with the Ministry of Justice to take further necessary action.
“I hope someone will sue me for exposing this. They will then meet maggots inside their plate of salt.”
However, Ajimobi’s former Special Adviser, Media, Mr Bolaji Tunji, on his Facebook page said the ex-governor focused on agric revolution in the state.
He wrote, “Though Senator Abiola Ajimobi is no longer the governor of Oyo State, it is difficult to forget some of the lofty plans he had for the state which earned him the sobriquet of the father of Modern Oyo State.
“One of such was his plan to revolutionise agriculture in the state. His take then was that to industrialised the state, agriculture was key as it would be the source of raw materials. On this note the administration in which I served decided to look at the opportunity that could be created through wholesome land allocation to would-be farmers.
“The allocation of land was done under the government’s policy called Agro Industrial Zones. The idea was to make land available to large agricultural investors.
“The government resorted to this option when it became difficult to access land directly from our communities. The land that was allocated then was the depleted portion of the forest reserves. Depleted in the sense that it had been encroached upon and the trees had been felled, illegally without people planting replacements.”
Source: PunchNG
