Ogun State Governor, Prince Dapo Abiodun, on Monday, threatened to take stiffer disciplinary action against any person found selling land in its forest reserves and plantation across the state.
The governor stated this while speaking at the Statutory Meeting of the state’s Council of Obas, held at the Oba’s Complex in Oke-Mosan, Abeokuta, the state capital.
He warned that his administration would not hesitate to invoke the wrath of the law against anyone culpable.
“We will continue to seek your support in the area of lands. Sadly, cases have been reported to us here in Abeokuta about some of our monarchs, who have taken it upon themselves to allocate government land, government forest reserves, plantations to others. They’ve been allocating and selling government lands.
“I have found this very difficult to believe. I consider this extremely unpatriotic that our monarchs will now begin to allocate such lands to others and worse still, in some of the areas, the land is being allocated to non-Ogun State indigenes
“Our Kabiyesis are colluding with people from outside Ogun State and giving our land to them in our plantations and they are coming there, deforesting them. They are destroying the plantation. They are planting Indian Hemp there. I was completely heartbroken when I heard this news and when we verified, it was true.
“As a responsible state government, we will not have any choice but to take disciplinary action against any person found culpable of such act; any person, be it Kabiyesi or any person.
“Because this land does not belong to me, it doesn’t belong to you. It belongs to our collective patrimony; it is our collective property that we own as a state. It is our commonwealth and we should endeavour to ensure that we do not engage in such acts like this capable of tarnishing the image of the royalty and the throne”.
Governor Abiodun also intimated to the monarchs of his administration’s efforts at bringing in more investors to invest in the state. He said the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the establishment of the Ogun State Dry Port at Kajola would be signed between the state government and a private investor before the end of the year, while discussions on the use of the Cargo Airport by Beninoise investors had been held with that country’s President.
“It means in Ogun State, we will now have a dry port that will enable all of us, including our industries and manufacturers, to ship their goods from anywhere in the world to Kajola. This Memorandum of Understanding will be signed between now and Christmas.
“Last week, I met with the President of Benin Republic. He shared with me the fact that the government of Benin Republic has heard so much about our airport, sent delegates and determined as a government that they want to be the first customer to export from our airport.
“They have decided that all their agro produce will be brought down from Benin Republic to our airport and will be exported to the rest of the world from our airport”. (Leadership)