Fidelis David in Akure
The Federal School of Agriculture (FECA), Akure, has sought the federal authorities’s intervention on the alleged unabated encroachment of the land belonging to the establishment by land grabbers and destruction of the establishment’s properties.
This got here two weeks after the establishment’s employees and college students protested in opposition to the land grabbers’ nefarious actions.
Briefing journalists on the establishment, the Provost, Dr. Akinyemi Albert Fadiyimu, expressed concern over the alleged persistent assaults and harassment concentrating on each college students and employees of the establishment by land grabbers.
Of their newest encroachment, he mentioned the alleged land grabbers used bulldozers to tug down financial bushes value N150 million, mentioned Albert.
“The newest incidence of encroachment started on December 7, 2023, and occurred once more on the eighth and thirteenth within the daytime and late night time of sixteenth up until December 20, 2023, when a gang of land grabbers led by one of many kids of late Clement Aladegbaye Falodun and his ‘surveyor’ assisted by a retinue of thugs and uniformed ‘safety officers’ who’re likely on unlawful responsibility,” the faculty provots defined.
Albert added, “They forcibly gained entrance into the faculty premises alongside the Agbogbo space by knocking down part of the faculty perimeter fence with using a bulldozer and within the course of destroyed the School teak plantation, preserved gene financial institution of endangered plant and animal species and different financial bushes all to the tune of N150 million.
In accordance with him, the faculty reported the prevalence to related safety businesses, together with the workplaces of the assistant inspector normal of police Zone 17 and commissioner of police, Ondo state command, through petition reference quantity ODO/GBC/7/12/2023, dated December 7 2023.
The provost urged safety businesses to research the unlawful appropriation and destruction of the establishment’s land.
“The general public ought to observe that the incessant trespass on the land of Federal School of Agriculture, Akure, which at this time stands at simply 250 acres (about 90 hectares), is posing a critical existential menace to the faculty,” warned Albert. “If it isn’t halted now, it might preclude your entire School or a few of the programs presently being provided or proposed to be provided in future from assembly the minimal requirement for accreditation.
He added, “Lately, there’s a clamour by some Ondo state (notably Akure) little children for the federal authorities to remodel the faculty right into a college of agriculture. Nevertheless, this dream won’t ever materialise if the actions of those land grabbers should not checkmated.”
The provost, whereas noting that the recurring injury of presidency properties and menace to the lives of employees and college students can also be getting the faculty group agitated, mentioned farms and plantations getting used for sensible coaching and college students’ ultimate yr initiatives are constantly being broken and more and more turning into inaccessible for employees and college students.
“Throughout considered one of their incursions on Saturday, December 16, a scholar was harassed and virtually lynched by these hoodlums,” famous Albert. “If one thing untoward ought to occur to any of our employees or college students, the faculty administration might not be capable of management no matter motion the scholars’ physique might resolve to soak up retaliation.”
He acknowledged that every one conventional leaders and Ondo residents “are invited to hitch hand with the federal authorities and the faculty administration to protect the sanctity of the faculty land and work in the direction of its development and growth, fairly than expropriation of its land, a transfer that may invariably result in its gradual extinction.”
The faculty provost additional mentioned, “However, selecting the previous will translate to the progress and improvement of the state and the promotion of meals safety in addition to make sure that a sustainable basis is laid for agricultural improvement for future generations in our pricey state and nation.”
