The Office of the First Lady of Lagos State has selected 200 women to participate in the nationwide farming competition for first-time female farmers.
The scheme, tagged “Every Home A Garden” competition under the Renewed Hope Initiative of the First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, will see the winner take home a whopping N20 million prize.
The wife of Lagos State governor, Dr Ibijoke Sanwo-Olu, who revealed this yesterday at the press conference and seminar organised for the selected Lagos participants at the State House, Ikeja, said the state would deploy all resources to ensure the winner of the prize at the end of the cultivation exercise (August – December) emerge from Lagos.
She expressed confidence that Lagos would emerge victorious among the competitors, saying, “We are being prepared like a boy scout for this competition, and we know we are going to emerge victorious.”
She disclosed that the committee overseeing the initiative from her office employed various elimination strategies, including digital and manual raffles.
According to her, the committee ensured the methods adopted for the selection process were “fair, unbiased, and transparent.
“The decision of our office to limit the number of participants from Lagos State to 200 is for ease of coordination,” she explained, mentioning that the age category for selection was between five and 70 years.
“The “Every Home, A Garden” Competition, aimed at promoting home farming, comes at a crucial time when food prices are soaring across our country and beyond.
“Oluremi Tinubu rightly believes that embracing home farming will bring much-needed relief to many Nigerians at this crucial time in our nation’s history.
“The “Every Home, A Garden” competition will culminate in December this year when the final winner from all 36 states of the country will be announced,” she said.
Mrs Sanwo-Olu said that since the competition’s announcement, Lagos State “has taken deliberate steps to ensure due process is followed in line with the criteria issued by the Office of the First Lady of Nigeria.
In his remarks, Lagos State commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, said more people who would have been considered for participation were disqualified because they lacked necessary documentation in the state database, particularly the Lagos State Residents Registration number.
