At 53: Elechi Wants More Focus In Agric

Governor Martin Elechi
of Ebonyi State has urged  Nigerians not to see agriculture as a profession for school dropouts but as a good source of wealth creation.
Elechi gave the advice in Abakaliki in his speech to mark the country’s 53rd Independence Day Anniversary and the 17th year of the creation of Ebonyi.
In the speech entitled “Matching Our Anniversary Celebrations with our Development Targets’’, Elechi said agriculture should be the way to go in a peculiar environment such as Ebonyi.
“We have the land, we have the know-how and we have a nation waiting for agricultural produce, which should make our people take the issue of food security seriously. “With our abundant agricultural endowments, wealth-creation and employment-generation should not be our problem. “The misguided belief that agriculture is a last resort or an occupation for school dropouts should be discarded,” he said.
The governor said “agriculture is a big business and a wealth-spinner’’, calling on young people in the state to take advantage of his administration’s agriculture policies to empower themselves.
“The three newly-established rice factories in the state should be a welcome challenge to serious rice farmers to re-double their efforts, given the assurance of greater profit and higher income.“I came back from a tour of parts of China and Vietnam with 17 rice farmers drawn from all parts of the state, and I expect that the insight gained from it should reflect in their farming output,” he said.
Sen. Sonny Ogbuoji (PDP-Ebonyi South) commended the founding fathers of the state “whose perseverance have continued to strengthen the present generation’’.
He said the excruciating pains of the struggle, which preceded the creation of the state in 1996, had disappeared.
“This has given room to hope, enduring joy and happiness to a hitherto-marginalised people,” the senator said.