A disciple of confuscius once asked his great master what the basic ingredients of good governance are, and Confucius answered “sufficient food, sufficient weapons and the confidence of the people.”
From the foregoing, it is important to note that the great Confucius in his answer placed food first as a priority before arms and confidence of the people. What this means is that food
It is, in fact, a basic truth that food cannot be ignored in the scheme of a government that aspires to identify with the people
have relegated food to the background, despite the vast arable land and acquatic life that abound in the continent. They rather put politics before every other thing, including the development of villages and across the ocean and those battling with huger?
So much has been said and written about politics already and with the way it is practiced here not many people may be interested. Therefore, this is the time to talk of food especially in the face of looming food crisis confronting not only our continent but the entire world. It is becausewe put all our eggs in the basket of politics that the agricultural sector, health, transport and all others are crumbling across the African continent.
Politics can not put food on the table, but agriculture, farms and fish ponds do. Politics can not provide drugs in our hospitals living meaningful.
The idea of making politics the central thing in our lives is like neglecting every other thing that makes life worth living. Otherwise why should politics push agriculture to the background whereas we need food to stay healthy and to play politics.
There is no doubt that if one-tenth of the money put into politics was directed to agriculture, Nigeria and indeed the African continent would have been self-sufficient in food production and even earned more through agricultural exports; and the threat of food crisis in the world would not have been a problem, as our country would have been a home for greens and grains long before now.
In Nigeria for instance, the various agricultural programmes put in place by succeeding governments since independence to give earner for the country have failed woefully as such efforts merely created emergency millionaires who diverted funds for such programmes to their pockets.
And now where do we point at in considering all that has happened in the past? Is it the collapsed infrastructures or the empty treasury? Matter of factly, our continent has wasted so much money and energy in the game of politics and gained a little out of all the sweat and efforts.
It is not reasonable that Africans should continue playing the role of global beggars all the time; we too should have something for which people in other continents would come begging us. This can be achieved though large scale agricultural development, and We should now begin to feed ourselves and think less of depending on people elsewhere to produce what we shall eat, and the earlier we do this the better for our country and our image, honour to our country and continent.
Actually, we have cried so much about democracy and having got it, this is the time to think about food, our stomach and well being. We need to start thinking of the democracy of food, the democracy of stomach.
It is only when we are sure of food that we can begin to listen and understand what is happening around us and make sound contributions that can be meaningful to our overall success. You can only find a sound mind in a well fed and healthy environment.
Patternson Koko
