Develop agriculture for South East to fly, Group tells Igbo govs 

Agriculture has been described as an engine that powers a nation’s overall development. That was the submission of a group known as Oganihu Mbaise in its second edition of Developing Mbaise Through Small and Medium Scale Enterprises at an event held at Chris V1 Hotels and Resorts, Ahiara Junction, Imo State. 

In his opening remarks, the chairman of the occasion, former vice-chancellor, Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Professor Joseph Ahaneku, pointed out that agriculture alone can take not just Mbaise nation but the entire Igbo country to the pinnacle of growth and development.

“You must visit China or Japan for you to understand what I saying. I am a regular visitor to both countries and I can tell you that the critical concerns of both of them are technology and agriculture.

“With modern agricultural equipment, China and Japan have taken agriculture to a level that food production, processing, marketing, preservation, and storage no longer pose any challenge. This is what I want our political leaders in Mbaise in particular and Igbo governors in general to emulate.

“Sadly, this event is holding in Mbaise and none of the three local government chairmen is here. Notwithstanding, my advice is, that we should emulate the China, Japan concept of employing modern technological equipment in developing agriculture here in Mbaise and South East as a region. This can only be achieved if our South East governors accept this clarion call”, Ahaneku enthused.

Associated Bus Company Plc founder and chairman, Mr. Frank Nneji, who gave the keynote address pointed out the practical importance of emulating and expanding on the Nnewi industrial philosophy of “bring your resources home”.

According to him, after the civil war in 1970, the people of Nnewi in Anambra State came together and charged their people with the need to invest in homes. Since then, as Nneji observed, any Nnewi investor or entrepreneur would always open a business front at the home front before investing elsewhere.

Or, after establishing his business outside Nnewi, would equally bring his investments home. At that juncture, all businesses, including agriculture, have been thriving in multiples. As the ABC chairman put it, there must be a way to industrialize the way palm oil, palm kernel, yam, maize, and cassava are cultivated, processed, and stored in Mbaise just as the bean cake (okpa) predominantly seen in the Anambra, Enugu, and Ebonyi states should also be improved using modern and civilized means.

Therefore, Nneji tasked the Southeast governors to start initiating ways through which the Igbo nation could commence mechanized agriculture by copping the Nnewi model of bring your business home, which encourages modern farming techniques (because young investors cannot do it the way their ancestors did it).

Nneji equally suggested the practice of “buying from us” which he said is the secret of the Arab world. For instance, the building materials markets at Afor Ori in Mbaise, Ogbor Oshishi in Owerri, as well as the timber markets scattered all over the Igbo nation can only thrive when Ndigbo as individuals and groups begin to patronize them rather than import building materials from elsewhere.

An erstwhile governor of Imo State, The Rt Hon Emeka Ihedioha, who was the special guest of honour, presenting his address through his representative, Prof Chijioke Osuji, hammered on the importance of moving from the old fashioned system of the traditional system to the modern industrialized agriculture.

He noted that palm trees which are central to Mbaise and Igbo agricultural system are old, weak, and no longer productive. He suggested that they should be replaced with modern seedlings that fit into the real purpose of mechanized agriculture and its commercial benefits.

Also, Ihedioha talked about the revival, restructuring, and remodeling of the traditional markets in Mbaise and Igbo countries. He made it apparently clear that the markets must be rescued from their present poor conditions. He called on the governors, local government chairmen, traditional rulers, and presidents general in the Southeast zone to work our formalities on how to make the markets fall into clusters for an effective and easy market of agricultural commodities and finished goods.

The former governor also lamented on the poor state of roads in the zone, insisting that no meaningful progress could be made in agriculture without quality roads to transport the agro products from the farm to the markets. Again, he charged the governors to embark on massive road construction in order to enable the farmers and the traders to have easy access to their farms and markets.

A Catholic priest of the Diocese of Ahiara, Owerri Archdiocese, Rev Fr Pius Anyanwu , was very emphatic when he said, that even the Bible supported agriculture as it instructed humans to increase and multiply. He added that the directive “any faith without good work is dead”, must not be interpreted on its surface as assisting the poor economically or excellence in righteousness, but also should be viewed from its angle of agricultural multiplication, which is going to work to farm.

In summary, all the speakers charged the government to make available soft loan schemes so as to aid the farmers in their bid to graduate from primitive farming methods to mechanized agriculture. When this is done, they argued, there would be plenty of food to feed the teeming population as well as provide jobs for the jobless youths.

Again, with improved agricultural practices, insecurity would be eliminated thereby making peace, orderliness, and tranquility the order of the day, and in the end, there would be massive infrastructural development with its attendant freedom and prosperity in Mbaise as well as the South East zone