Farm settlements fees: ODSG to arrest defaulters

By Fatima Muraina
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Ondo State Government has said that it will begin to arrest farmers who failed to paid the required fee for their farm settlements within the state forest reserves and across the state as from next week.

This was contained in a press statement released by the Head Media and Public Relations Unit of the State Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Bolu Ajijo which was made available to The Hope yesterday.

According to the statement, the State Commissioner for Agriculture, Asiwaju Adegboyega , the Governor’s task force on Special Duties and anti land encroachment have been given directives to arrest any defaulter as from the first week of August.

 It said, that government has given farmers in its reserves and farm settlements till the end of July to pay up their yearly dues.

The ultimatum was said to have earlier been given during an interface the Commissioner had with traditional rulers, Camp Heads and farmers in the farm settlements held in Akure.

According to Adefarati, the meeting was informed due to their non compliance to pay up as agreed accordingly.

Adefarati told the farmers, camp heads and the Olus that government is not happy with their recalcitrant attitude in honouring the agreement.

He warned that any farmer or camp head that failed to pay up the agreed fee of N10,000 per rope depending on how many ropes allotted to them will face the wrath of the law.

According to Adefarati such defaulters, apart from paying what was defaulting amounts would also lose the farms to other reliable farmers.

The Commissioner disclosed that the State government has approved the construction and rehabilitation of not less than 60km of farm roads, purchasing of 20 tractors and five hilux vehicles to ease farming activities in the state.

He advised all the farmers in the state on the need to register their titles to take advantage of the windows of opportunity whike charging them to perfect their papers before the month end.

He noted that any farmer or camp that is not captured before the deadline will ceased  to be recognised.

Available record shows that only 86 farm camps have paid so far out of 600 camps in existence in the Farm settlements across the state.

Speaking earlier , the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Segun Odusanya and the Deputy Coordinator of the Task force Gbenga Atiba advised the farmers on making payments only to the government through the e -payment advice received from the ministry.

Speaking on behalf of the farmers and camp heads, Chief Babatunde Ero from Ifon and Chief Mrs Faderera from Ofosu urged farmers to ensure complying with governments directives to avoid any form of arrest.