By Ifedayo Adebayo
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| Residential homes built by Obafemi Awolowo for the farmers convenience. Photo: IFEDAYO ADEBAYO |
It was meant to be a sign of progress for the people of the state, but the recently built State Secretariat for the Osun State government has disrupted the lives of hundreds of farmers whose settlements now form the bulk of the land on which the new secretariat was built.The farm settlement was itself a government creation, albeit that of an older govern-ment.
It was created in the early 1960s by the Western Region government of Obafemi Awolowo as part of its desire to modernise agriculture in the then young region.
The Oke-osun farm settlement was a 50-hectare expanse of farmland where each farmer had a hectare of land to himself, as well as adequately furnished residences.
It was part of the signal projects of the old Western Region --ranking alongside the University of Ife, Liberty Stadium, Western Broadcasting Service, and Odu'a Invest-ments in prestige.
Buildings were constructed on the settlement for the farmers' convenience and sold to the farmers on hire purchase.
Olasunkanmi Adebayo, the chairman of the settlers, said they never thought they would become vagrants as they were the foster children of the agricultural modernisation project.
The only change previous military administrations had imposed on them was the reduction of the land allocation by half to accommodate more farmers.
"At the outset, everything was going on as planned and envisaged," Mr. Adebayo said. "A lively community was rapidly growing with bumper harvests, ready markets, and farm prosperity.
"Arable crops like maize, cassava, cowpeas and vegetables were cultivated. The farmers and their families were living together happily and we annually organ-ised festivals to celebrate with ourselves. It is a lost glory, but now we are dying and there is no one to attend to our situation."
The fortune of the farms changed in 1999 when the elected government of Bisi Akande decided to provide the state with a "befitting" secretariat.
The government secured 25 hectares of the land for the construction of the secretariat. It also compensated the 25 farmers affected in the exercise and relocated them.
They said the present administration of Olagunsoye Oyinlola was not as fair to the remaining farmers.
"When the governor visited us after his assumption of office, he promised that if he will not add to what Awolowo did for us and the state through the farm settlement, he would not remove from it," Mr. Adebayo said.
"He also wrote the same thing in our visitor's diary. Since then, all that we have got from this government has been ridicule of all sorts."
The special adviser to the state governor promised to present the government's response to the farmer's accusation. He, however, did not fulfil this promise. But Mojeed Alabi, a former Speaker of the state's House of Assembly said part of the tragedy of the country was the absence of visionary leadership.
"Our present crop of leaders, including myself, per-haps do not think beyond the immediate gains of public office," he said.
"The issue of leaving a legacy for posterity, like Awolowo did, is secondary to political expediency in the face of mass poverty which is being exploited by a few to subject the gullible many to suffering."
Ruined farms
What is left of the farm settlement is a desolate land-scape. The feeling of deprivation is heightened by the spectre of the secretariat buildings laid out in the horizon.
Contractors working on different parts of the land daily destroy the farmers' crops. The harried farmers said they sometimes come to their farm-lands to meet bulldozers clear-ing their crops.
Bode Omoloye, the Public Relation Officers of the farmers' group, said his 25-acre plantation of maize and cassava was destroyed while he was away from the farm.
"When I came around, I don't know where to start," he said. "The Bale (communal head) called me. I was shivering. I've been looking forward to when I will harvest my crops. But, what do I have now, a farmland taken over by a building development company at the order of the state government."
Mr. Adebayo said when the farmers visited the state Com-missioner for Agriculture to complain about the invasion, he told them they should have informed the government before going to the farm to plant anything.
"I just opened my mouth and didn't know what to say," he said. "How are we going to start telling the government before planting on the farms given to us years before it assumed office? It was a hard lesson."
The farmers said their travails started when unknown persons suddenly started invading their Oke-pupa settlement at night.
"At the peak of the commu-nal joy and peaceful coexistence amongst the farmers, a jealous gang started coming into the settlement over the night to attack farmers and their families," Mr. Adebayo said.
"The intruders used machetes, guns, and other dangerous weapons to perpetrate their evil acts. We first thought that they were after our money, but their attack on me revealed that it was beyond what we presumed.
"They stabbed me and inflicted very deep wounds on my skull and all over my body. All the money in my pocket and my valuables were not touched and that was when we knew that it was a plan to displace us."
Mr. Adebayo said the attacks initially drove most of the farmers away from the settlement. "We lost a lot," he said. "Little time after then, other executive members and I decided to visit the place and all of us left the place crying.
"Almost all the roofs of the buildings have been removed and some destroyed. Then it dawned on us that someone wants us out of this place."
Now, with pockets of gov-ernment-sanctioned building projects popping up all over the settlement, the farmers fear they are on the way to los-ing everything.http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News
First Published in 2009.
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