The Governor of Ondo State, Hon. Lucky Aiyedatiwa, has described agriculture as the backbone of the state’s economy, highlighting its vital role in sustaining citizens’ livelihoods and driving economic growth.
On Monday, he made this assertion during the groundbreaking ceremony of the 3.5km Ebute Ipare-oke rural road project in Ilaje local government area, Ondo southern senatorial district.
This comes just as the state government has embarked on massive road rehabilitation across the state’s three senatorial districts through the Ministry of Infrastructure.
At the event, Governor Aiyedatiwa highlighted his administration’s deliberate focus on transforming rural areas across Ondo State through infrastructure projects, especially road construction and rehabilitation.
The Governor said: “Our administration has been making deliberate efforts to implement several life-changing programmes and projects geared towards improving the livelihood and living standards of rural dwellers and teeming the farming population in our dear state through the construction and reconstruction of several bad roads.
We are doing these for the rural communities so that agriculture remains the backbone of the economy of Ondo State.”
Governor Aiyedatiwa noted the importance of the rural road project in ensuring a steady supply of food from farms to urban areas while raising rural residents’ socioeconomic status.
He stated that rural road projects have also been groundbreaking in Oda and Idanre towns within the Central Senatorial District and in Molege, Owo, in the Northern Senatorial District, where contractors handling the projects simultaneously have intensified work.
He attributed the success of these projects to the state’s timely payment of counterpart funds for the Rural Access and Agricultural Marketing Project (RAAMP), a collaboration with the World Bank and the French Development Agency.
The Governor assured the residents of Ilaje that the new road would help address the economic gap between rural and urban areas by facilitating smoother transportation and creating opportunities for local farmers.
