Chairman of CSS Group of Companies, Professor John Kennedy Okpara, has argued that the country has no business with hunger, given Nigeria’s population and rich vegetation.
Okpara noted that with proper infrastructure in place and insecurity addressed, Nigeria can leverage its agricultural potential and produce more food for its populace.
He spoke at the training of over 150 youths on agro-business like fishery, piggery, horticulture, and others, over the weekend in Keffi.
Okpara, who served as Executive Secretary of the Nigeria Christian Pilgrims Commission (NCPC), lamented that Nigeria consumes about 4.5 million metric tons of fish every year, while the country only produces less than 1.3 million metric tons.
He said the government must be deliberate in fixing basic infrastructure and tackle insecurity, which he said have been the major factors affecting the country’s food system.
“It has been the challenge of insecurity, people being unable to farm, and people farming and then whatever the plant is being vandalized or destroyed by animals.
“The government must really come fully in terms of providing jobs through agriculture to the people, so everybody can protect what he has.
“I think that lack of job has really created the vacuum. The day we end this unemployment is the day insecurity will end. I believe that if we are serious and committed, let every man secure his own farmland. Let the government be involved in engaging them to farm and engaging them to add value, and that will help the nation automatically.
“Also, look at fishery, for instance. Nigeria as a nation consumes about 4.5 million metric tons of fish every year, but we are producing less than 1.3 million metric tons.
“So, if people can even go into fishery, they will produce enough fish for protein. And then we plant things like cassava, process it, government will set up processing factories that will have rice, the government will set up a processing factory that will produce and process this food and give back to the nation.
“Until we get it right in terms of food sustainability and ending food scarcity, we will not be a happy nation.”
Also, the founder of Emma Njoku Foundation, Dr Emmanuel Njoku, said the training is not politically motivated, but a genuine initiative to boost food production.
Njoku said: “This is a natural course of action that Nigerians should take at this time in our history. We have a lot of unemployment. We have food insecurity in our country.
“And we have a whole lot of youth, you know, able-bodied men and women who are languishing in every part of this country, doing nothing. So, the right thing to do is to empower people. It is, for me, a natural course.
“And that is why I have brought all these people here to train in this great facility, to train the next generation of Nigerians that will continue to help Nigeria overcome these challenges of food insecurity in the country. And also the challenges of unemployment. These young people, when they are trained in this wonderful and state-of-the-art facility, they are going to become employers of labour.
“They are going to help increase food production in Nigeria. They are going to even export net food products from this country. They are going to generate a foreign exchange.
“They are going to contribute immensely to the growth of Nigerian GDP. So, I have taken this initiative, and this is just the first step. From here, I am still going to do a whole lot of things, like train more people across the nook and cranny of Nigeria, bringing them to this place to continue to sort out these things that are facing us in Nigeria.”
He added: “Now, we have 150. And after two weeks, another 150 will come to train.”
On the cost implication of the training, Njoku said: “I think it is nothing compared to what the benefit is going to be. I do not really count the cost when I do things. I rely on the net value and net results.”
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