Leadership (Abuja)
Isaac Aimurie
4 October 2008
National Agricultural Foundation of Nigeria (NAFN), yesterday paid a courtesy visit on the senior management staff of LEADERSHIP Newspapers Group to seek the support of the media organisation for the forthcoming National Agricultural show organised by NAFN and billed for Saturday 11 to Wednesday 15 October, 2008.
National coordinator of the foundation, Dr. Shetima Mustapha, who represented the chairman, Alhaji Abdullahi Adamu, former governor of Nasarawa State, said his team chose to visit LEADERSHIP because of the impressive stories on agriculture published regularly in the newspaper.
"We are here to seek your cooperation in the promotion of agriculture, particularly the forthcoming National Agricultural show holding in Nasarawa State. We need your partnership so that collectively, we can push the sector forward."
The Agricultural sector, Mustapha maintained, has been relegated for too long due to global demand for crude oil and regretted that the resources accruing from crude oil has not been channeled to develop other sectors including agriculture which holds the food to the stomach,
"Most of the infrastructure we grew up with were built proceeds from agriculture.
"Today, Nigeria is worse off for the over dependence on other sources of income, and issues like food, security should have been a thing of the past."
He charged the Yar'Adua led government as well as the private sector to go back to agriculture which employed over 70 per cent of the nation's populace, contributing over 40 per cent of the nation's gross domestic product.
The Agricultural foundation, he said, promotes agro-related activities of Nigerian farmers and exposes the country's potential to improve the economy and enhance income generation among Nigerians, through activity like the National Agricultural show, an idea he explained, was borrowed from China during former Governor Abdullahi Adamu's tenure as Nasarawa State governor.
The foundation stressed the need for the federal government to support private involvement in Agricultural development to reduce the over dependence on government for everything.
Earlier, the publisher/Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP Newspaper, Sam Nda-Isaiah, represented by the general manager, Business, Abdulralham Huseni, pledged the organisation's support for laudable initiative like the Agricultural Show which toushes the lives of the populace directly.
He later presented copies of LEADERSHIP titles to executives of the foundation.
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