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My dear Alhaji Mohammed Sabo Nanono,
I am compelled to write this open letter to you in the hope that even though you may not have the opportunity to go directly through it, someone who may be close to you will be able to see it, and draw your attention to it.
When the All Progressives Congress party launched its manifesto in Abuja on Thursday, March 4, 2014, it made certain commitments to the good people of Nigeria. One of the most important commitments he made was the party assuring Nigerians that he would focus on job creation during his time in governance. In fact, the first element of the APC manifesto was job creation.
The party estimated that around 25% of Nigerians and 50% of young job seekers were unemployed, and the percentage of people whose jobs could not cover the cost of food and shelter was even higher. For example, the APC said it would immediately create 20,000 jobs in each state of the federation for holders of a minimum high school diploma, who would also participate in technological and vocational training. The party said it will encourage state governments to focus on job creation by matching each job created by the state government with two jobs created by the federal government.
Years have passed and nothing seems to be happening. No one can, in all honesty, say that much has been accomplished by President Buhari’s APC government in this area of job creation. To complicate matters, the president recently said that it was necessary to make the young people of the country understand that there were no vacancies in the country – not at the federal level, not at the state level or even at the level. of the local council. I think the president should have been more diplomatic in approaching such a critical issue.
Either way, I think the main problem here has been the inability of your ministry to coordinate its activities with state and local government ministries of agriculture and rural development. We need to do something now because time is running out.
We all know that it is the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development that regulates agricultural research, agriculture and natural resources, forestry and veterinary research throughout Nigeria and that you, Alhaji Mohammed Sabo Nanono are the current Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. That is why I am writing this open letter to you directly.
First, and in all modesty, your ministry must wake up from its slumber and agree with all other Nigerians that job creation is one of the most daunting challenges facing the APC government. And therefore, all hands must be on deck with the government of the day to meet this major challenge.
Recently I had a long vacation from UK to Nigeria. I watched the hundreds of young adults in my village and town as they roamed the village roads every day in search of some kind of professional commitment, and I was truly moved. I started asking no one in particular how serious Nigerian public office holders whose responsibility it is to create jobs for the Nigerian people must be.
Nigerian teenage mothers got dragged into this because they didn’t have a job
What upset me the most was that virtually every girl in my town and neighboring towns from the age of 14 was now a single mother. I’m sure these things weren’t the trend these days. Many of them, hungry and hungry, with no money to buy ordinary food, would allow themselves to be impregnated by equally unemployed boys. A child is born and either sold to ritualists for money or to couples who really need to adopt children. Girls are paid around 40,000 N and the boys who impregnated them are paid 20,000 N. The child is sold for around 200,000 N. In this way our young adults are mortgaging their conscience to the devil because they do not seem not have options. Those who keep their children unplanned have no money to raise them like normal parents, and they begin to “find their way” early on, becoming hardened criminals in no time. And when society becomes so infested, who is to blame?
But let’s put the blame trade aside for now and get down to the specifics if your ministry and the CPA government are listening for once and making good use of the opportunities this article may present to you.
With your instructions to the State Agriculture Commissioners and their part to any local government agricultural advisers who would anchor the project, each local government should make at least one mile of its arable land available for use by them. “State farms”. This is step 1.
Step 2: Nigerians know their country’s staple foods. There are cassava, potato, yam, taro, rice, beans, corn to various kinds of fruits and vegetables. There is animal husbandry such as goat and sheep breeding, pigsty, snail breeding, mushroom cultivation, fishing, etc. These should be listed by your ministry’s working group and forwarded to state agricultural commissioners for discussion with their local government agricultural advisers.
Step 3: State agricultural commissioners should select a minimum of one and a maximum of two food products to plant on each of the state’s local government farms. For example, there are 44 regional local government councils in Kano State, the state with the largest number of local governments. The Kano Agriculture Commissioner would then liaise with the local government agricultural advisers who would choose at least one staple to plant on the local government farm.
Step 4: If a local government chooses fishing for example, it would be allowed to produce enough for local consumption within the state and if necessary beyond the state. Some of the fish would then be processed in the industrial area of the farm into canned fish, smoked fish, dried fish, etc.
Step 5: A local government that chooses to plant cassava would harvest it and turn it into garri in the agricultural factory. They would then be neatly packaged in N20, N50, N100, N200, N500 and N1000 packages. Nigerians would be happy to say goodbye to the days when they measured the garri with cups. The plant can also process items like starch and other cassava by-products.
Step 6: Distribution of processed crops would increase employment levels. Whole vendors and retailers came to the agricultural factory to buy for distribution to other areas of local government or overseas. In this way, many jobs can be created. Some workers are said to be hired on farms and others in factories. Some would take care of packing, others of loading and unloading. Some would be engaged in distribution to approved buyers and others would be approved buyers to those in need of the product, etc.
Step 7: The local government that plants vegetables like ‘ugu’ and amerleaf can harvest them and turn them into canned vegetables with their price tags. They can turn them further into vegetable oil, all in the farm complex.
Step 8: Each farm would have a factory where its products can be processed.
If all of the country’s 774 local governments were following a program like this, coordinated by your ministry and state commissioners for agriculture, there is no reason Nigeria should run out of food. No one would complain that the PCA government is forcing the country to become a failed state. Perhaps all the federal government would do is make funds available to state governments to purchase essential tractors and farm implements.
If two billion naira are made available to each state by the federal government, that would amount to 72 billion naira for the whole country. For a state like Kano with 44 local government zones, each LGA would get nearly 46 million naira to run their farms.
And I am of the view that arrangements could be made either to hire tractors from the federal government when needed, or to encourage Nigerians like Innochris to make tractors for the states at a subsidized cost as his own contribution to the economy. poverty reduction in the country.
I would highly recommend this approach to your department and the PCA government to address this daunting and somewhat persistent employment problem. In the three years left before the next election, the government should be able to convince Nigerians that this means good to them.
I am counting on you, Alhaji Sabo, as a concerned citizen.
My name is Chief Sir Emeka Asinugo, KSC.
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