Agric pivotal to Buhari’s change agenda – NSUBEB chief

The Executive Chairman, Nassarawa State Universal Basic Education Board (NSUBEB), Mallam Abdulkarim Mohammed, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to make agriculture the centerpiece of his Change Agenda, in the interest of the collective prosperity of all Nigerians.
Mohammed gave the advice in Lafia when he visited the State Ministry of Agriculture as part of his advocacy tour of agricultural institutions and stakeholders in the state. He said that agriculture remained a key sector that could transform the Nigerian economy and have direct bearing on the lives of its citizens, most of whom depend on farming and other forms of agricultural practice for survival.
The NSUBEB boss chided past administrations, both at the state and federal levels, for lacking in the vision and well-articulated policies to turn agriculture into the economic mainstay of the nation, with its attendant positive consequences. He called on President Buhari to see the dwindling oil revenue as a blessing and take advantage of the window of opportunity it has created to revive the agricultural sector, which he said would create wealth, ensure food security, create jobs and arrest capital flight through importation of agro-allied goods and services.
While calling for a more dynamic approach to national development through renewed commitment to agriculture, Mallam Mohammed criticized the traditional instruments and institutions of government for overseeing the demise of pragmatic ideas, and called for a total overhaul of the system if it must yield the desired results. The State Commissioner for Agriculture, Alhaji Lawee Yusuf, said that Nassarawa state had made sufficient budgetary provision to enable it key into President Buhari’s agricultural agenda.
He regretted that in the past, farmers in the state were not able to access agricultural loans and other grants, a situation which has hampered the growth of the sector.