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By Ubanne NG
Nigerians have been advised to eschew the pain and bitterness experienced in recent times so as to ensure the nation’s economy gets the best restructuring.
This was part of a lecture delivered at the one-day agricultural farm training organised for the youths and farmers in Port Harcourt Constituency I by Hon. Manuchim Umezuruike, the member representing the constituency in the House of Representatives.
According to Dr. Momoh Yusuf Mustapha, who is the national president of fish farmers in Nigeria as well as the consultant and resource person at the training, stressed that youths need to be encouraged to go into fish farming so as to engage them meaningfully, enhance productivity, redirect the nation’s dependency on imported food and maximise Nigeria’s potentials.
“Farming generally is our tradition; it is our culture here in this country. Why are the days of the groundnut pyramid gone, the days of cocoa gone too; because of oil? That is why we are suffering today because the country put all their eggs in one basket and that is why the Honourable (Umezuruike) is empowering his constituency youths and farmers so that we can go back to farming,” Mustapha said.
He went further to opine that “our resources are being wasted each time we have the opportunity to engage the youths as well as farmers to be productive but fail and rather than producing our immediate needs, we depend on importation of foreign products, a condition that impoverishes our system at the expense of foreign demand.”
He encouraged House members to invest in the future of their youths for sustainability and a better tomorrow.
‘There can’t be a better way of doing this because it is the best way of encouraging the people to have a backyard farm where they can start up something to earn multiples of income. We are together encouraging multiple streams of income to enable us together eradicate poverty. With what he (Umezuruike) is doing with the youths, believe me that is the best way to go. The youths need to be encouraged, we want to teach them about hard work and they need to be patient to practice fish farming which generally is our tradition.”
Mustapha maintained that with the latest technology, farming inputs and techniques have become simpler for every farmer. “Technology has changed to suit agro transformation and aquaculture because farming of twenty years ago no longer sustains today’s demand. Therefore the youths as well as farmers can take advantage of these mobile facilities to improve meet our target.
“Over 70% of the fishes consumed in Nigeria are imported and we are still importing and each time we import, we are empowering other nations to produce and there can’t be jobs for our youths. So teaching them these again is for them to feed well, make money and reduce the rate of some diseases caused by poverty. If these diseases like cancer of the mouth, throat, etc are reduced we can make more money because everybody eats fish and we need food to survive,” he said.
The second resource person at the training, Mr. Ibokobong, warned participants on the dangers of abusing such an opportunity to be trained, given them by the Reps member, Umezuruike. He further warned the participants against such “instance of denial and betrayal on the efforts of the honourable House member,” while urging they to rather pray for proper utilization of the Reps member’s empowerment initiatives.
“My concern is that our people should not compromise this gesture, let our people not behave like some people such that when they receive these things they look out for someone who will buy them off, meanwhile taking themselves back to the very beginning. I just pray that they will be reasonable enough not only to participate but be a part of this empowerment initiative,” he said.
No fewer than 80 youths were expected to attend. However about 50 of them were in attendance with each participant empowered with a bag of feed, fingerlings and an empowerment purse.
