Oyo State Governor, ‘Seyi Makinde, on Friday, maintained that the state government was delighted with the prospects and potential of the African Development Bank’s special agro-processing zone project sited in the state.
The governor, who made this known in a statement while receiving a team of the AfDB at the Governor’s Office, Secretariat, Agodi, Ibadan, noted that the state was already moving in the direction of agro-processing in line with its agenda to expand the state’s economy through agribusiness.
A statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Taiwo Adisa, quoted the governor as stating that the state was already witnessing a boom in the cassava value chain and that the prospect of the special agro-processing zone project was exciting.
He said: “I want to use this opportunity to welcome one of our own, Professor Banji Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, back to Oyo State.
“The special agro-processing zone is very exciting to us here, and I am happy to let you know that we are already moving as a state as well.
“Few weeks back, we commissioned the second largest sorbitol plant in the world, owned by Psaltery International. That is one step further down in the cassava value chain, from cassava to fructose and then to Sorbitol.
“If you go to the neighbourhood of the plant in Ado-Awaye now, it is cassava all the way. In fact, once you get to Iseyin and move further, you will just see trucks carrying cassava all over the place and few of the things they have asked us for, we are pushing.
“So, we are excited about the prospect of this project.”
Earlier, the team led by the Special Adviser on Industrialisation to the AfDB president, Prof. Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, stated that the process towards the building of the special agro-processing zone had been long, with Oyo State being one of the eight zones.
He expressed joy at being able to bring the project, which he said would be commissioned on October 24 and October 25, to fruition.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka equally commended the Oyo State government for the support it gave the AfDB on the project, describing the governor as “an indefatigable champion of the project.”
He noted that apart from possessing the requirements to get into the programme, the state also had the best environmental laws and was one of only two states to have signed off with the federal government on the subsidiary loan agreement.
