•Burning bush
Owner of Royal Farm at Akeredolu village in Atakumosa West Local Government Area of Osun State, Rufus Jegede, has cried out over the destruction of his farm produce worth over N150 million.
Jegede, a chartered accountant, said he suspected a foul play by someone who intentionally set fire to a section of the farm on February 24, reports Nigerian Tribune.
The alleged perpetrator of the inhuman act had been invited by the police divisional office in the local government area.
Speaking on the spate of destruction carried out by the suspect, Jegede said over 4,000 palm trees and five hectares of pineapple farm were lost to the inferno.
He stressed that the suspect had been having a running battle with him since he started cultivating the farm in 2015, just as he called on security agents to come to his rescue.
Jegede told our correspondent that a minimum of 50 kegs of palm oil are being produced from the farm on a weekly basis, saying the incident had affected him financially.
He said: “On February 24, one of our workers who was passing through the extreme end of the farm noticed that there was a fire outbreak. He alerted other members of staff about the incident and they discovered that a vast portion of the farm had been burnt down.
“About N140 million worth of palm trees were burnt while the pineapple worth N10 million burnt to ashes. We are not going to get any harvest from the section of the farm this year because the damage was too much.
“In the last three years, this will be the third time that we would experience such incident on the farm. We were able to curtail the previous ones because we were available to put out the fire.
“Through surveillance and enquiries, we were able to identify the person who set the farm on fire and the suspect did it deliberately.”
Meanwhile, efforts to get across to the state Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mrs. Yemisi Opalola, failed as of the time of filing in this report but a top police officer who spoke to our correspondent on condition of anonymity confirmed the incident, saying investigations are ongoing on the matter .
He said the suspect had been invited by the police for questioning.
