The director general of the Voice of Nigeria (VON) and a chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) Osita Okechukwu, has called on states and local governments to key into the Buhari Agrarian Revolution (BUGREV) for economic prosperity of Nigerians.
Okechukwu waned that the missing gap between the rich and the poor is too wide, hence the need to quikly build a middle class.
Speaking at an interactive session with APC press corps Monday at the party’s national secretariat, the VON boss said #BUGREV is the Utility Bolt, to upgrade not only the 70% of Nigerians who are already in subsistence farming, but to motivate and mobilise more people, especially youths and women into agriculture.
According to Okechukwu, for the records there are many programs defining the #BUGREV to mention a few – big time commercial farmers, cooperative farmers and the beneficiaries of the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP).
The APC founding member regretted that even members of his party (APC) who initiated the program more or less ignored or didn’t accord it the import and urgency required.
Okechukwu said: “Even our desire for devolution of powers or restructuring will make better sense, and be more meaningful, for without economic prosperity, resorgimento of the middle class; restructuring no matter how well designed will only reinforce the Emperorship of our Governors. Therefore, it will spice our shared intendment for devolution of powers. This is a task that we must all embark on.
“The old axiom maintains that the happier and more prosperous the citizenry the less they succumb to the allure of stomach infrastructure and the more they enhance internal democracy. This is the bedrock of true democracy.
As a Political Scientist, one has ruminated and resorted to deep introspection over our socio-economic paralysis; and heightened fundamental challenges from the day the World Poverty Clock declared us infamously as the World Poverty Capital, followed by Nigerian Bureau of Statistic’s (NBS) Report which listed Nigeria’s demographic population of under cum unemployment rate at 56%. To compound matters came the news by our sister, Hajia Zainab Ahmed, Hon Minister of Finance, that by the end of 2021 our debt overhang will hover around N40 trillion. Solution hunting became imperative out of our major arsenals.
“ABP attracts my interest more than other variants of #BUGREV, in expanding the frontiers of agriculture, for it is an epitome of communal farming, more or less devoid of prohibited interest rates, the bane of our Shylock Banks.
“In sum, it goes thus: the community maps out hectares of land, and each farmer owns one hectare, high yield seedlings, fertilizer and other inputs are supplied by Central Bank of Nigeria (the managers of ABP). The products are picked up or bought by designated overtakers, who via the bank remits the farmers due share, until he becomes self sufficient.
“Finally, gentlemen of the Press, lets buy-in into #BUGREV, for with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Green Imperative Programme (GIP), a blitz mechanisation scheme meant to site over 600 Tractors Servicing Centers and over 100 Agro-Processing Plants nationwide, we are on good ride. GIP will plug the missing gap of middle class, by building faster the rural middle cadre, with effective linkage with the grass root. With one stone we kill two birds – the middle class and renews our rural areas.”
The Enugu born politician who showed commitment to the program said “with #BUGREV our quest to lift 100 million people out of poverty in 10 years, the urgent need to halt all manner of insecurity bedevilling us and the imperative to reduce the stark economic inequality rests squarely on back to land.
“Secondly, rice production since #BUGREV’s inception when compared by government administrations in the last two decades, rice paddy production has so far averaged at about 7 mmt under the Buhari administration — the highest.It averaged at 4.1mmt, 5.4mmt and 3.3 mmt during presidencies of Musa Yar’Adua, Goodluck Jonathan and Olusegun Obasanjo respectively.
“Rice paddy production in Nigeria increased from 325,000 tonnes in 1969 to 5.1 million metric tonnes in 2019, growing at an average annual rate of 8.76 per cent, the data show. The president of Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria (RIFAN), Aminu Goronyo, attributed the increase seen in rice production to the Anchor Borrower’s Programme and ban on forex for food importation, coupled with land border closure.”
