How have you been?

It’s been another very busy two weeks for me. With the cabinet in place, we have gone straight to work in delivering good governance to our people. Recently, I travelled as part of the President’s entourage to Benin Republic, where we had talks on border trade and cooperation at the sidelines of their Independence Day celebration.

As you may already know, Oyo State shares international borders with the Republic of Benin, and I am looking forward to the economic gains that we will make from that engagement. I am always interested in local and international cooperation that will strengthen the Oyo State economy. This is why instead of speaking of palliative measures - which deal with symptoms but do not actually solve the problem - here in Oyo State, we introduced sustainable actions through the SAfER Programme. SAfER means Sustainable Actions for Economic Recovery.

If you listened to my broadcast regarding this, you would know that through SAfER, we plan to stimulate our economy through short-term plans that will have long-term effects. Yes, we have some direct interventions, such as the Food Relief Package to 200,000 of the poorest of the poor households, but that also serves to stimulate the economy as most of the items in the package are sourced locally.