#EDO 2020: Discarding Nigeria’s  Medieval Agro-template

Nigeria’s medieval  agro-template remains a debilitating clog in the wheels of our agricultural revolution.

 

Governments the world over often set machinery in motion  towards food security for the citizenry by discarding the above-named whose end product is hunger. In other words, hunger has continued to rise resulting from conflicts and protracted crises and has in fact worsened abysmally since Nigeria returned to civil democratic rule in 1999.

 

This has in no small measure threatened the Food and Agricultural Organisation’s ( FAO) efforts to achieve the 2030 agenda for sustainable growth and  development geared towards zero hunger.

 

Aside from Nigeria’s primitive agro-template, conflicts have continued to be the main driver of hunger across Nigeria.

Recent study shows over 150 million Nigerians suffer from chronic undernourishment as a result of failed agricultural policies.

However, having studied the process of transformation and sources of growth in agriculture in the broader context of economy, my administration shall holistically pursue technological, institutional and policy measures for faster, efficient and sustainable growth to ensure food security.

 

I shall put in place technological change, diversification and expansion as obtains in Italy, one of the high-income countries in the eurozone.

 

Export-oriented commercial crops such as cocoa, cashew nuts, oil palm and others which Edo State is known for shall be revived.

 

We shall vigorously pursue and exploit potentials of existing and frontier technologies by investing more in agricultural research and extension systems – a gross departure from the medieval agro-template.

 

Farmers’ stories will not remain the same as my administration shall strengthen institutions that link them to remurative markets.

 

They shall have every cause to smile as the incoming PPN administration invests in post-harvest infrastructure for food processing to curtail waste.

 

Edo State cannot afford to lag behind and this state under my leadership shall formulate and implement  agricultural policies for faster growth as obtains in comparatively low- income countries with technological change.

 

We shall remain focused by toeing the line of other low-inncome countries in sub-saharan Africa which  have experienced robust growth in agriculture via  structural transformation.

 

Edo State though an oil-producing state shall not rely solely  on 13% derivation fund from the Federal Government for our state to undergo rapid transformation.

Our firm resolve to generate revenue from agriculture and the  agricultural sub-sector remains sancrosant.

 

These are for the benefit of our people as my administration shall endeavour to set up safety nets across the state, if ever, for the unemployed as obtains in developed countries.

 

Our people are humans and must be practically treated as such which informed our interest and desire to call a conference whose delegates mainly of Edo State extraction was drawn from across the eurozone.

 

The resolutions reached in that conference on how to rescue our state from overlords led to the historic 2018 Turin Declaration.

 

The  name, Turin, may sound greek to some readers of this piece. Turin where the above-named Declaration was made  is the capital of Piemonte Region, an industrial heartland in Italy’s northern uplands.

 

Part of the resolutions on that day was to rapidly  transform Edo State to Piemonte Region, an industrial heartland in the eurozone, by our team of technocrats and competent economic managers with our wealth of experience gathered over the years in that part of the Old World.

 

We cannot , I dare say, yet again  achieve this  without your active support.

 

This is why we must as a matter of urgency identify ourselves with the new order by joining forces for a  PPN-controled Edo State in the forthcoming dispensation.

 

Iyoha John Darlington

Edo State Governorship Designate

Peoples Party of Nigeria (PPN)