The Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu amazed participants at the Lagos Food Festival when he joined them in preparing pepper soup on Sunday.
The event yesterday was graced by chefs from across African countries, including Kenya, Togo, Ghana and others.
Governor Sanwo-Olu, who was a guest of honour at the state’s annual event, commended those who participated in the variety of competitions and also hailed the heritage of the state.
Over 10,000 residents of the state are said to have registered and attended the free event, which featured a musical concert, food, drinks and others.
Having prepared the pepper soup in the company of Chef Gbolabo Adebakin and a popular food blogger on Instagram, Chef Tolani, Governor Sanwo-Olu said this year’s edition of the food festival was bigger and better than the previous ones.
He said: “It is such an honour to be here this evening. I commend all our great food vendors that have come out to participate in the festival.
“Thank you all very much for being part of this year’s food festival and I am hoping that everybody will take something back home.
“This is our culture, this is our heritage, this is who we are, this is Lagos, and we are indeed proud of our heritage.
“We are proud of what we are turning our dishes and our cuisines into,” the governor said.
Delegates from the sister African countries participated in the Jollof rice war cooking competition. Ajiri from Ghana contested against Nigeria’s Chef Feyi.
In her remark, Lagos Commissioner for Agriculture, Abisola Olusanya, said the agricultural sector generated over N1.2bn as revenue for the state in 2022 in spite of the global food challenges.
According to her, the ministry surpassed its one billion naira generated in 2021, adding that the revenue was generated even under the most strenuous circumstances affecting food production.
”In 2021, we generated roughly a little over one billion naira; this year is tougher obviously due to election process and what have you.
“There was a glut in the system overall; obviously due to the challenges related to war between Russia and Ukraine and a lot of instability economy-wise. This actually impacted on a lot of our food processors and producers here,” Olusanya said.
She stressed that the economy has not been friendly to anybody this year generally. However, Olusanya said the ministry still did all it could and at least we are hoping to end the year on an N1.2 billion note.
The commissioner noted that the agriculture ministry could generate billions of dollars in revenue if well harnessed.
She said that with new ideas, new innovations and projects, the revenue should be more in years to come.
“For me, what I’m really happy about in 2021 is doing N1 billion for the very first time in the existence of the ministry since 1967.
“It is not a fluke that this ministry is indeed a billion naira industry, it is actually a billion dollar industry.
”We repeated it even under most strenuous circumstances, meaning if everything is to be so good, we should be crossing over N5 billion in revenues annually.
“We are hoping in 2023, we should be crossing the threshold of N3 billion. But this year, we are sure of making N1.25 billion,” the commissioner added.
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Governor Sanwo-Olu Amazes Participants With His Cooking Prowess as Lagos Food Festival (photos)