Abdullahi M. Gulloma
President Muhammadu Buhari warns that Nigeria may face another social crisis if the two million people, mostly women and children, displaced by Boko Haram insurgency are not catered for.
The President expressed his worry, recently, during a meeting with the world leader of Tijjaniya Islamic Movement, Sheikh Sharif Ibn Mohammad, at the State House in Abuja.
“Government is faced with the problem of repairing schools, health centres and whole towns,” the Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Garba Shehu, quoted the President in a statement he issued, this week, in Abuja. “We must repair their schools and recruit teachers, otherwise they will become tomorrow’s Boko Haram.”
The statement said that the president commended the religious group for the prayers they had rendered for three days in Yola, Adamawa State, for the recovery of the economy and peace in the country.
The President said the problems being experienced in the global oil sector have forced Nigeria to rethink its position on agriculture. “We are learning the hard way. The mistake we made was to abandon agriculture. We came at a time of difficulty the country has never experienced since the Civil War.”
Essentially, the President assured Nigerians that the present administration would not relent in the effort to achieve self-reliance and security for the nation. And, here is the crux of the matter.
For too long, Nigeria has abandoned its agricultural sector, an area which before the advent of oil served as its main source of foreign exchange revenue. Unfortunately, however, the neglect of agriculture has not only resulted in the loss of revenue, but also led to absence of food security and degradation of an area which would have served as an avenue for employment of especially the country’s teeming unemployed youth.
In fact, it were the unemployed youth who, we may say regrettably even if it was expected, that were largely engaged by the Boko Haram insurgents in the North-east to cause grievous mayhem on Nigerians.
Agreed, there were other factors responsible for the birth and actions of the dreaded Boko Haram sect, such as the neglect of education, yet, it can hardly be denied that lack of occupation for the youth, an objective that could only have been achieved mainly through agriculture, was principally to blame.
Currently, the government may have convincingly rendered the insurgents group comatose, but if the unfortunate mistreatment of the internally displaced persons at their camps continues in the face of lack of engagement of youth, the consequence would be better imagined than witness.
This is why the Buhari-led administration should stop at nothing to adequately cater for the welfare of the people and develop the agriculture sector, which has the potential to absorb large chunk of unemployed, including women, and other crucial sectors of the economy, for this is the only way that the President’s worry can be addressed.
