Provision Of Silos At Four Agricultural Zones To Support Buybacks

As the first term reached its conclusion in May 2023, the state's agricultural storage capacity remained largely unchanged from 2019 levels. While the administration's "Roadmap for Sustainable Development" for the second term began to prioritize "modular processing and community storage," we can confirm that the ambitious plan for a four-zone silo network had not been realized. 

Farmers in the Ogbomoso, Saki, and Ibadan zones continued to rely on traditional, less efficient storage methods or private warehouses, as no state-led silo construction was delivered in these areas.

By mid-term in 2021 and 2022, the government's narrative had shifted toward the development of "Agribusiness Industrial Hubs," such as the Fasola Hub. While these hubs were designed to include processing and some private-sector storage, they did not fulfill the specific public-sector mandate of providing state-managed silos to support a government buyback program for the general farming population. 

During this period, the Awe silo project, which was initially promised for completion within five months of its 2019 revival, suffered from repeated delays.

The journey began with high expectations in September 2019, when the state government settled a long-standing legal battle with Rahvet International Limited, the contractor for the 10,000-metric-tonne Awe silo. The administration directed the contractor to return to the site, emphasizing that the silo was 68% complete and essential for the state's "buyback" vision. At that time, officials publicly projected a January 2020 delivery date. 

However, as the focus remained solely on this one inherited site, the broader promise to establish similar facilities in the other three agricultural zones was effectively abandoned, leaving the state's grain storage strategy incomplete by the May 2023 handover.