THE TRUTH ABOUT OGUN STATE MITROS RICE.....AMOSUN

The Ogun State Governor, Ibikunle Amosun, has described as
sad deliberate attempts to demarket the state for selfish
reasons.
Amosun was reacting to report on social media alleging that
his administration mounted sandbags with few bags of rice as
rice pyramid to deceive the state indigenes as well as his
gullible followers.
The report claimed that the Mitros rice is not available in any
shop in Ogun state after much celebration, insisting that there
is no rice farm anywhere nor factory where the rice is being
bagged.
But speaking on Saturday at the opening of the 2018 Media
Workshop of the State House Press Corps with the theme:
“The Role of The Media in Peace Building: 2019 in
Perspective”, in Abeokuta, Ogun State, Amosun said it was
wrong to deliberately run down the state by those who have
the plans of running for office not weighing the implications of
such action.
Represented by the Commissioner for Information and
Strategy, Chief Dayo Adeneye, who had earlier led members of
the Press Corps to the Ogun State Mitros rice processing
factory situated at Asero Odeda local government Ogun, urged
the media to continue to report the truth no matter how
manipulative politicians try to change the story.
He
said that the yield this year will surpass that of last year
because the farmers now know that the government serving as
off takers will buy whatever they produce and sell at N11,000
to the public.
“I’m just urging our colleagues, we were able to take you round
and you saw for yourselves what obtains, you saw the
processes, the farms, you saw the farmers, you saw how
grateful they were to this administration for empowering them.
They were also grateful to the federal government programme
IFAD, FADAMA for empowering them and helping them to
achieve what they have been able to achieve with MITROS
RICE. You also saw the processing plant, the rice mill, the
bagging process and all that.
“Some people are just being mischievous because we are
approaching election year and they are trying to score cheap
political points.
“The social media can either be used either as weapon of
mass destruction or weapon of mass development because
people tend to believe everything they read on social media
whether is true or not.
So
we will like for you to tell the story as it is so that these
distractors can shut up. Is better for you to tell that story than
for us to defend ourselves so they won’t say there is nothing
to defend. You have seen that there is no bag of sand as rice,
what you saw were happy farmers who are going to plant this
year triple what the planted last year both in parboiled rice and
Ofada. And people who are happy to buy rice at N11,000 of
50kg rice the same that was going for between N21,000 and
N22,000 per bag over a year ago. Now the price has been
crashed.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria Governor and the Chairman
Presidential Taskforce on Agriculture came to verify for
themselves. Rather than encouraging this administration to do
more they think they can score cheap political points by de-
marketing this state and publishing false and fake stories
about MITROS RICE.”
The two guest lecturers at the workshop were Dr. Wale
Aderemi, Senior Lecturer, LASU and Dr. Abubakar Kari, Senior
Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Abuja.
Aderemi urged the media to shun sensationalism and fake
news, and stressed the need for the main stream media to
tackle social media which are sadly forming public opinion
today.
He said for peace building ahead of the 2019, a free press is
key.
As the fourth estate of the realm, peace journalism should be
adopted as a framework like the Kenyan Media did. To down
play all features that divides the nation, because hiring the side
of caution was better than bloodshed.
He said the manner and language of reportage can be very
dangerous urging that the truth must be reported but the
language must be checked.
He said taking sides and promoting prejudices must be
jettisoned ahead of the 2019 elections and become a
verifiable tool for reporting the truth.
Kari on his part said, Nigeria is a conflict ravaged polity that is
characterized by conflicts.
He said media has been part of the problem rather than being
part of the solution.
He said ethnicity, religion, interests of editors and complete
lack of neutrality has characterized media report in recent
times and urged a change ahead of the elections.