Communities Decry Neglect Of Agric Centre

Egbeke/Nwuba communities, land lords to the Rivers State School-to-Land Centre in Etche Local government Area of Rivers State have decried the long neglect of the centre by successive administrations and called on the state Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike, to come to their rescue.
Making the appeal yesterday in an interview with The Tide in Port Harcourt, spokesman of the communities School-to-Land Committee, Engr Eberechi Onyegbula, expressed worry that the over 1000 hectares of land donated to the state was left abandoned with bushes taking it over and urged the governor to turn the area into a College of Agriculture if the idea of School-to-Land was no longer feasible to the government.
He said: “If the government is no more interested in using the area for School-to-Land, they could turn it to College of Agriculture.
“If the government is not interested in the land, let them relinquish it to us as we are in dire need of it”.
He noted that the state government stopped showing interest in the centre during the military administration alleging that there was attempt to use it for the Songhai farm but because the community had nobody in the government to speak for it, it was lost out to Tai Local Government Area.
Onyegbula regretted that inspite of the huge potentials of the centre in terms of agricultural development and employment generation, the place was allowed to rot away.
He said while government abandoned the farm, it also abandoned the people as there is no government presence nor any social ammunites in the area.
“Our neighbouring communities in Imo State make mockery of us that Etche has oil and we are from oil-producing state but we have nothing to show for it.
“This is because these neigbouring communities in Imo State have been provided light, water, good roads by the Imo State Government.
“We plead with Governor Wike to wipe tears from our eyes by giving attention to our woes”, he said.

Chris Oluoh