‘Agribusiness can reduce poverty by half in Nigeria’

Jill Okeke

There is need for the country’s economic managers to work on her policies and programmes towards her development and growth because the traditional growth strategies are grossly inadequate in addressing the daunting 21st century challenges, experts have said.

This was the summary of the 2019 bi-annual lecture held at the Federal University of Technology Owerri [FUTO], recently.

Speakers after speakers, including the keynote speaker, Dr. Kingsley Fregene, to the guest speaker, Professor Ndubuisi Ekekwe and the Vice Chancellor Professor Frances Eze, amongst other stakeholders, who spoke at the confab tagged, ‘The pursuit of exponential development,’ reminded Nigerian government and citizens about the consequences of population being grown exponentially while the economic growth is being achieved at a snail pace.

Firing the first salvo, on how to curb the menace of poverty, Professor Ekekwe who also writes in Harvard Business Review said Nigeria needs to focus on agriculture. “If 65% of people that work in Nigeria earn their income through agriculture and if they double their earning power by improving their yield, then poverty level estimated to be over 45% of Nigeria’s 198 million population will be reduced by 37%,” he said.

Besides, he said, to increase the knowledge capacities of the citizens, the Professor Ekekwe suggested a $10 billion yearly for Nigerian universities system but said that this money does not necessarily have to be provided by government.

“In America and Western Europe, there is cleaver tax system that stimulates rich people to give money to schools because the more money they give, they are off setting their tax obligation in other places. If there is such tax policy, people will inject capital into university system which will make universities competitive,” noted Professor Ekekwe.

Echoing similar sentiments, the Vice Chancellor of the institution, Professor Francis Eze, Nigeria had witnessed stunted economic growth over the decades which have continued to be the bane of making her remain in poverty and failed to place her on the league of developed nations.

“As Nigerian population grows, there is need to fast track technologies, innovate on how we grow crops, add value and invent technologies to fight hunger,” Professor Eze said.

In the words of Professor Ekekwe, Nigeria is struggling to catch up with fast paced development with the rest of the world in spite of the availability of the elements it has that can trigger exponential growth in the country.

“Nigeria has all the elements that is necessary to achieve exponential growth but it must create an enabling environment that will propel growth in order to toe the line which various successful world economies have done.”

Also speaking, Chairman of the occasion, Henry Macauley, immediate past Minister of Energy for Sierra Leone and former Sierra Leone High Commissioner to Nigeria said Nigeria is rightly positioned to take advantage of its population and all the resources it has, not only mineral but human resources which is huge.

The National president of FUTO Association, Ndubuisi Chijioke said development deficit in most sectors is monumental that a progressive development will not get the country out of the quagmire except exponential development.

Also the chairman of the Association Lagos Chapter, Collins Okpara stressed that the easiest way to achieve exponential growth is for government to start funding research in various institutions. He added that the objective of the programmes is to create an integrated and economic development approach.In the view of Anyanwu Chinedu  National Vice President FUTO Alumni Association, that Nigeria needs to develop is no longer the issue. “The issue has become identifying and creating the roadmap that will substantially engender quantum leap measurable in terms of GDP, infrastructure, human capital index, etc.”