By Samuel
The Governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade, has called on the government across all levels to create new regimes capable of providing jobs and ensuring food security for Nigerians.
Ayade stressed on the need for the government to focus largely on industrialisation, especially agro-industrialisation, for economic prosperity.
The governor made these observations on Thursday while delivering his goodwill message at the Agriculture Summit Africa (ASA) organised by Sterling Bank.
The third edition of the two-day Summit had kicked-off on Wednesday with the theme, ‘Fast-Forward Agriculture: Exploiting the Next Revolution.’
Speaking further, Ayade cautioned that extreme desire for survival is forcing some Nigerians to exhibit what he described as animalistic behaviour.
The don pointed out that the United Kingdom started its industrial revolution many years ago through agricultural industrialisation.
Ayade listed his administration’s strides in agro-industrialisation to include the establishment of garment, poultry processing, feed mill, organic fertilizer, rice milling, rice seedling, cocoa processing, toothpick and groundnut oil processing factories, among others.
The former senator, who pointed out that Nigeria’s unemployment rate is alarmingly high, also noted that there was nothing any government could do if it continued to depend on oil.
“The oil industry accounts for 95% of the total income of Nigeria with less than 5% employment,” he pointed out.
He also observed that there must be a deliberate policy to create a superhighway that connects all the various agricultural industries into a deep seaport.
The professor submitted that this was the basic philosophy that underpins job creation as it is “absolutely impossible to look upon oil as the mainstay of the economy.”
“Agro-industrialisation is not just critical for an alternative income to oil but it is also a critical source of employment,” he said.
Ayade, however, commended President Muhammadu Buhari for approving the Bakassi Deep Sea Port as the first agro-industrial port in Nigeria.
He also urged the Federal Government to work more with the state and local government stakeholders in order to “score more goals for agriculture.”