Ondo State farmers who are government tenants, farming in Oluwa Forest Reserve, Odigbo Local Government Area of the state have protested the destruction of their farmlands on which they pay millions of naira as rent every year.
The farmers in their hundreds protested on Ore – Ijebu Ode Highway on Sunday morning which hindered free flow of vehicular movement. They displayed placards with different inscriptions, some of which read “Respect Court Order, Stop oppressing Oluwa Forest Farmers, The Destruction of Our Farmlands Should Stop, Enough of this Injustice.”
The farmers told our correspondent that the Ondo State Government has collected rents on the farmlands from them up to the current year. They hinted that the problem started under Governor Rotimi Akeredolu when some private companies claimed that they had bought the forest reserve from government.
According to them, they challenged this claim by taking the Ondo State Government and the private companies, among which is SAO Agro-Allied Services Limited, a private company they allegedly linked to Mr. Ayo Sotinrin, the current Managing Director of Bank of Agriculture.
The farmers acknowledged that since the inception of the regime of Governor Lucky Ayedatiwa, there has been peace as the governor met them severally and promised not to allow them face any form of harassment or hostility from anyone.
However, they alleged that since the appointment of Mr. Rotimi Wemimo Akinsola as Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Agriculture and Agro-Business, “who doubles as the Chairman of the Ondo State Agribusiness Empowerment Centre (OSAEC), he has shown total hatred, hostility, and unfriendliness to farmers in Ondo State and has been acting as if he were an SSA to the private companies struggling for the souls of our forest reserves, particularly SAO Agro-Allied Services Limited, a private company owned by Mr. Ayo Sotinrin, the current Managing Director of Bank of Agric.”
The farmers further alleged that Akinsola has been threatening them with eviction from their farms with threats of arrest and detention, claiming to be acting on the orders of the governor. But they pointed out that on “24th March, 2025, the High Court of Ondo State sitting in Ore, presided over by Hon. Justice Adegoroye, gave an order of injunction against the Ondo State Government and SAO Agro-Allied Services Limited, to henceforth stop further grading of their crops, and they were also restrained from evicting the farmers till the final determination of the case.”
The farmers cried that to their utter dismay on 28th April, 2025, while their leaders were lured to Akure for a supposed peace meeting by Akinsola, SAO Agro-Allied drove its bulldozers into the farms to resume the destruction of their cocoa farms with the claim that it has bought 10,000 hectares of the Ondo State Forest Reserve from the state government that is still collecting rents from the farmers every year.
The farmers called on Governor Ayedatiwa to sack Akinsola who they accused of not serving the interest of the state government but that of the private companies, for his own gains. They equally demanded the immediate resignation of Sotinrin as Bank of Agric MD, for conflict of interest, and called on President Bola Tinubu to remove him if he fails to resign honourably.