Anayo Okoli
29 December 2008
Umuahia — A PROMINENT farmer, Chief Ugochukwu Okpalaeke, has accused the five governors of the South East zone of not giving serious attention to agriculture, saying that they only pay lip-service to the sector. Okpalaeke warned that this would be devastating to the economic development of the zone in future.
Okpaleke, a winner of Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) 2007 Best Farmer in Imo State, also alleged that leaders of farmers associations in the zone who the governements deal with are people without farms. According to him, this group of people collect loans and other incentives made for genuine farmers and only use them to junket from place to plce, insisting that a genuine farmer has no such time to juncket.
Chief Okpalaeke who has various lines of farms as well as palm oil processing industry, in Umuchu and Akokwa, in Anambra and Imo states, respectively, stressed the need for the South East governors to encourge the people to go back to farming because according to him, no economy can develop without sufficient food which can only be supplied by farmers.
He equally advocated for a law by the various governments in the zone banning felling of palm trees, which he said would enable the zone to return to its old glory when palm oil was its main economic stay.
"The South East people rejected agriculture in toto, and it is affecting them. The South East leaders should make a clarion call on their people to go back to farming. What we are seeing is just the begining because oil will go down more. If the governments in the past had insisted on agriculture, Nigeria will be greater than what we are today. We have no option than to go back to the land.
"The five South East governors are doing nothing about agriculture. They only pay lip-service to the agriculture sector. They should take serious look to agriculture, and it is the duty of these governors to revive the people's interest in farming. They should encourage them.
"First, they should make it mandatory that people should go back to plant palm trees which the zone was known for before the advent of petroleum products. They must be serious with this. Malaysia took their seedlings from this zone and now malaysia is a world giant in palm oil production. In fact, palm oil imported from Malaysia has today contributed to the down turn of our palm oil.
"I am calling on the governors to meet and decide to impress it on their people they need to go back and plant palm trees, and embrace agriculture generally. This is the only way out. We can't go anywhere without agriculture because we have to feed ourselves first", he said.
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