The Adagba of Iyanfoworogi, Oba Adetayo Oladele, has disclosed that the need to empower the youth through job creation and give back to the community was responsible for the establishment of a N1 billion company- Ife Heritage Investment Company- in Ile-Ife.
Oba Oladele, who is also the Chairman of Ife Heritage Investment Company, stated this on Monday, at the official launching of the company in Iyanfoworogi, Ife East Local Government Area, Osun State.
According to the monarch, Ife indigenes in diaspora decided to set up the company in order to make life easy for their people and develop of their immediate communities.
“We were thinking of how we can give back to the communities and make life easy for our people. Our people in America and some of our people in London that are Ife indigenes sat down and said that there are ways that we can contribute to our communities. So, we came up with this initiative.
“We chose Iyànforowogi as the pilot place. We are still going to other areas but because I am the Adagba of Iyànforowogi,it is always good to start from where you know the terrain and that is why we are starting here.
“Our major focus is on Agriculture and our goal is not only to plant and sell, we want to plant and be processing. We want to have industries that will be processing all those things. We want it in a big and commercial quality so that we can site some industries that will be able to process those things. We are not limiting it to this place but throughout Osun State and possibly to other parts of Nigeria as we are being lead,” Oba Oladele said.
The company’s interim chairman , Mr Niyi Murele, said they are working hand in hand with farmers in the community in order to scale up their (the farmer) productivity.
“Ife is an agro-allied economic environment and mechanised farming is not there. What we are bringing as a company is capital, technology and entrepreneurship. We are going to collaborate with the farmers so that they can actually scale up their productivity for the benefit of the communities,” he said.
Dr. Tunde Faleye, who represented the Chief of Staff of Osun State Governor, said the company is aligning with one of the programmes of Osun State Government.
Faleye added that he was elated because the company would empower the youth and project Iyànforowogi, Ile-Ife and Osun State to the world
“By the time the products from this company are coming out, there will be need for the government to look into how they can make the project a laudable one.We would be seeing Iyànforowogi as a contributor to the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) of Osun State,” Faleye said.
Also speaking, the representative of Nigeria Incentive Based Risk Sharing System For Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), Engr. Akin Ibiyemi, said that NIRSAL is ready to collaborate with Ife Heritage Investment Company because of its interest in agriculture.
