Ekiti First Lady Seeks SMEDAN'S Support For Adire Ekiti Hub.

Ekiti First Lady Seeks SMEDAN'S Support For Adire Ekiti Hub. 

....SMEDAN DG Visits Adire Ekiti Hub, Impressed With Creativity in Local Fabrics.

Wife of Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Olayemi Oyebanji, has canvassed the support of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Agency (SMEDAN) to equip Adire Ekiti Hub for it to experience higher turnover of production to meet ever-growing demand for its products.

The First Lady made the call when she played host to the Director General of SMEDAN, Mr. Charles Odii and his team from the federal agency who were on a working visit to Ekiti State.

Dr. Oyebanji first hosted the SMEDAN boss and his team in her office before leading them to the Adire Ekiti Hub on a facility tour where Mr. Odii expressed delight with what is being done at the centre in the areas of creativity, enterprise and productivity.

The First Lady and the SMEDAN chief were conducted round the facility by the Technical Advisor to the Governor on Entrepreneurship Development, Dr. Abimbola Oni with the SMEDAN team admiring and purchasing a good number of the Adire products.

The Governor's wife said the seed sown with the inauguration of the Hub in the month of March is growing rapidly and making waves but pointed out that the support of SMEDAN would be needed for massive equipment of the centre and empowerment of its trainees.

Specifically, Dr. Oyebanji noted that the centre would need industrial sewing machine to produce ready-to-wear Adire clothes, and other equipment to produce bags and shoes made with Adire to further boost the production process.

The First Lady further wooed SMEDAN in the area of supporting the Adire Ekiti Hub trainees with Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) as a form of empowerment for them to scale up the art of producing the fabrics and boosting the trade.

Dr. Oyebanji said the Hub a been overwhelmed with orders for supply of more of its products from both local and Diaspora clientele made up of individuals, groups, trade unions, corporate organizations, among others hence the call for support from SMEDAN.

She said: "I have listened to you and the long short of this conversation bothers on how to better the lots of our people through your organization (SMEDAN). Believe you me Sir, Adire Ekiti is going places and we are doing so wonderfully well."

During the facility tour of the Hub, Dr. Oyebanji said: "There is so much demand for the Adire Ekiti products now, we even have demand from our people in Diaspora. We are looking at getting machines to be producing readymade materials on a large scale."

Speaking earlier, SMEDAN DG, Mr. Odii, who said Ekiti State was picked as one of the benefitting states in the agency's National Business Skills Development Initiative said the agency would be open to supporting the various initiatives of the First Lady including the Adire Ekiti.

Mr. Odii identified SMEDAN's platforms through which Dr. Oyebanji's initiatives can be supported to include infrastructure development, capacity development, creation of policies and establishment of State Council of SMEDAN.

"When (State Council of SMEDAN is) inaugurated, it will remove bottlenecks towards job creation. We want to partner with you to merge funds with Ekiti State where SMEs can access money for working tools and business capital," he said.

Mr. Odii further disclosed that SMEDAN also as 'One Local Government, One Product Initiative' in which each local government area leverages on a product it has comparative advantage and potentials to produce adding that "we are here to support you especially in a natural resource-rich state like Ekiti."

Speaking during his visit to the Hub, Mr. Odii said: "I heard about Adire Ekiti, I have come, I have seen and I can assure you that we will be back because we can see the immediate impact on the lives of the people of Ekiti State.

"On Adire Ekiti, we can start to export Nigeria, more importantly, we can start to reduce high rate of unemployment in Nigeria and keeping a lot of families afloat. A lot of productivity is going on here and we can say confidently that something is happening in Ekiti State. Come to Ekiti and come to Adire Ekiti Hub."

The SMEDAN DG was accompanied by the Commissioner of Investment Trade and Industry, Mrs. Omotayo Adeola and other SMEDAN officials from the Abuja head office and Ekiti office.