In a bold move to address the country’s economic challenges, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has been urged to declare a state of emergency in the agricultural sector.
The Tinubu Media Support Group (TMSG) and BATists Against Inflation (BAI) in a joint press briefing in Abuja on Tuesday noted that the declaration aims to revitalize Nigeria’s agricultural industry, boost food production, and ensure national food security.
The Chairman of TMSG, Barr. Jesutega Onokpasa noted that Nigeria has the potential to become a global agricultural powerhouse
He said, “We have come to the conclusion that the easiest, quickest and most sustainable way out of the present situation is for our dear President to immediately declare a state of emergency in agriculture and to thereunder immediately proceed to apply massive amounts of targeted investment in the agricultural sector.”
“We are not talking of relative pittances such as what are effectively paltry budgetary votes for agriculture across federal, state, and local government tiers of government.”
“What we are calling for is a humongous investment in agriculture running into multiple trillions of naira per annum at the federal level alone, to be replicated at lower but similarly unprecedented amounts at sub-national levels.”
“The great thing about investment in agriculture is what any real economist should be able to instantly appreciate. It is something called “return on investment.”.
“Critical and indispensable infrastructural projects such as roads, waterworks, ports, airports, etc. usually take years, even decades, sometimes, to deliver, and it is only then that you can begin to reliably assess the return on investment of such massive expenditures.”
“You can build a huge refinery over five years and end up not even recouping the investment decades thereafter. Planting crops and rearing animals is a different kettle of fish altogether.
“You can plant a crop today and harvest and take it to market within as early as just three months. You can hatch poultry on any given day and start selling mature meat products within a few months.
“God deliberately made it so because everyone must eat, nutrition being the number one need of humankind, way ahead of even such other crucial priorities as clothing, shelter education, or healthcare.”
“There is absolutely no part of our country that is not arable or cannot be irrigated—that is how remarkably blessed, favoured, and endowed this nation is.”
“From Sapele to Sokoto; from Benin to Benue; from Nok to Nsukka, from Badagry to Bama, from Okene to Ogoja, there’s not a single square revitalising of our country that God, in His Divine Providence, has not made it possible to feed his children from.”
“We must now take the bull by the horns, wrestle it to the ground and, forthwith, proceed to devote a special vote to agriculture amounting to no less than five trillion naira per annum.
We declare that we will never regret it as a nation. Imagine if absolutely every village in Nigeria had just one tractor that farmers therein could share in cultivating their fields.
That would actually be quite punny for a nation of 200 million plus people—average individual farms in The United States, The United Kingdom or The Netherlands have multiple such farming equipment ranging from tractors to combine harvester to all manner of more modern innovations in agricultural technology.
Imagine the boost the average farmer in Orerokpe would get upon being granted access to a tractor to farm cassava, or the bump his counterpart in Daura, Abudu, Ile Ife, Amassoma, Abakaliki, Agatu, Funtua, Langtang, Obudu, Gusau, Uromi, Vandekiya, or anywhere else in our lovely country would get from similar empowerment for growing any of the crops, both food and cash categories, we desperately need in this economy.
“The irony is that massive investment in agriculture is precisely what a major, indeed the most important plank of our campaign strategy under the All Progressives Congress, APC, was based on for the presidential election.
“Our dear President, Asiwaju Tinubu, was mocked for promising to make food sustainably available to Nigerians, even to the extent of the opposition tagging us BATists as “Agbadorians.”.
“Well, let’s turn the tables on them by answering the name with pride by providing them the food they are complaining they can’t afford under our government.”
“What we need now in this country is not endless protests that only end up being hijacked by failed politicians, looters, vandals, insurrectionists, bandits, and rascals but a renewed focus on our easiest pathway to rescuing our national economy, which is agriculture.”
“We don’t need “revolution now”; what we need is a “renewed food revolution,” and if anyone can pull it off, it will definitely be President Tinubu.”
“Let us provide the food and see what the opposition has to say when they begin to eat the food provided by Bola Tinubu’s authentic food revolution as opposed to the fake former one by a farmer who, unlike Asiwaju, has never been able to feed anyone but himself.”
“Indeed, we call for a declaration of a state of emergency in agriculture and enjoin all Nigerians to support our President to rescue this nation from decades of rot, stagnation, and unimaginative leadership,” he said.
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