Daily Independent Online.
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Friday, July 02, 2004.
Ogbeh asks FG to focus on agriculture
By Onoja Audu
Special
Correspondent,
jos
The Special Adviser on Agriculture to the
President and National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party, (PDP),
Chief Audu Ogbeh, has challenged the Federal Government to accord special
priority to agricultural sector of the economy as a way of ensuring food
security in the country.
Ogbeh who made the call while on a facility tour visit to the
National Veterinary Institute (NVI), Vom, said he was at the institute to see
for himself the efforts of the institute in various aspects of veterinary
research.
No country, he said, could go far without
securing its agricultural base.
The PDP chairman blamed lack of emphasis on
agriculture for the poverty that now pervades the rural areas, which has in
turn led to continuous migration from the rural area to urban area in the
country.
This development, he said has further
worsened unemployment and accompanying crimes in the urban centres.
The Special adviser said many of the crises
being witnessed in the country today should not be attributed to
ethno-religious problems as many Nigerians are made to believe, but to the
shift in the emphasis from agriculture, the main employer of labour in the
country.
He said since Nigeria’s population hovered around 140
million and probably more at a time when there was all probability of the oil
wells drying up, it would be wiser for government to give due attention to
agricultural development in the country.
