Farming: Chairman Wants Politicians To Encourage Youthsa

The decline in farming activities among youths in the society has been attributed to the inability of politicians to  empower them in agricultural activities to enable them operate and have their own farms.

The Chairman, Community Development Committee (CDC) Aminigboko Emughan in Abua/Odual Local Government Area of Rivers State, Mr. Umor Georgewill Akeoma who made the assertion in an exclusive interview with The Tide over the weekend at his country home said politicians had used the youths unnecessarily by not empowering them in any agricultural activities.

He described as counter productive, the system whereby politicians share money among themselves and the youths at any given time and event which lead to the youths being idle and unproductive.

“What they are involved and interested in is how they will share Money. Politicians have been giving them money and have so engaged the youths in criminal activities like what is happening in the country now”.

He attributed the emergence of militancy and other nefarious activities by the youths to the abandonment of farming among the people for quick cash and emphasised that it was only by going back to the land that the trend would change for the better.

“You see that in every corner of the various communities across the nation, perfectly not only in my area, every youth has been introduced to one form of criminality or the other”, he lamented.

The CDC boss frowned at the development were most of the local government chairmen in the state have their own farms while their so called “boys” have nothing to call their own.

Mr. Akeoma said when these politicians leave office; the youths left in the cold will have no option but “devise ways and means of increasing their nefarious activities.”

He further explained that when the “money sharing” ends the idle youths would be left with no alternative than to be engaged in robbery and other related crimes.

Continuing, the CDC boss said it was imperative especially to the government agencies and the politicians in power to advise and call their people to order especially the youth to stay away from criminal activities and embrace farming as according to him “it was a noble and profitable activity”.

He further advised the youths to “go back to their masters (politicians) and seek for credible jobs or loans which will help them establish their own farms for their own economic wellbeing as well as that of the society at large”.

According to Mr. Akeoma, “I am a practical farmer and I have been farming for the past thirty years which I use to feed my immediate family and sell the surplus for cash”, explaining that it was better to boast to your peers how large your farm is rather than how politically connected one is.