  Provost: Land Grabbers Disturb College Quest for Expansion Â
James Sowole in Akure
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The Provost of the Federal College of Agriculture (FECA), Akure, Ondo State Dr. Samson Odedina has said that land grabbing that subsequently leads to plantation destructions was a major issue having negative effects on the institution.
Odedina stated this in his address at the opening of the Diamond Jubilee of the college established in in 1957.
The provost lamented that the activities of land grabbers had been hampering the determination of the college to mount more programmes and expand the scope of the college activities in the nearest future.
He said the size of the college land was less than 10 per cent of the total land area of similar institutions in Ondo State.
According to him, 60 per cent of the college’s original land is gone, while the remaining 40 per cent, which is occupied by rocks and motor parks around, was under threat of sponsored litigations.
He lamented that the institution’s land had degenerated from 1000 hectares in 1957 to 375 hectares and that half of the 375 hectares was under litigation.
The provost said the issue started when, before his assumption of office in 2015, a judge in the state gave a judgment that half of the remaining Federal Government land that was legally acquired in 1949 belonged to certain individual.
However, he said the college has scaled all legal hurdles and has successfully moved the case to Court of Appeal on behalf of the Federal Government.
He therefore appealed to well-meaning leaders in the state and Nigeria at large to come to the aid of the institution in preserving the school’s land resources for the sake of the youths, saying the land was being held in trust for future generations.
He therefore appealed to well-meaning leaders in the state and Nigeria at large to come to the aid of the institution in preserving the school’s land resources for the sake of the youths, saying the land was being held in trust for future generations.
