Akwa Ibom State governor, Pastor Umo Eno has stated that the current economic hardship experienced across the country is exacerbated by the longtime neglect of agriculture especially by individual citizens and urged everyone to return to farming for food sufficiency.
He stated that the state was making plans to cushion the effect on citizens through the planned establishment of a Bulk Purchase Agency (BPA), as a short-term measure, LEADERSHIP Friday gathered yesterday in Uyo, the state capital.
The governor said he was moved to launch such an interventionist regime in view of the prevailing socio-economic challenges that could snowball into a full-scale humanitarian crisis if urgent palliatives were not devised to contain the situation.
He said the problem needed a concerted and deliberate commitment to farming by everyone towards enhanced food sufficiency and prevent a recurrence of the economic crisis.
The governor stated these while addressing the leadership of the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN), who paid him a courtesy visit in his office at the Government House, Uyo.
The governor said “the solution to the current economic hardship is beyond trading blame, but requires a readjustment of lifestyles especially to accommodate farming, irrespective of the available size of land for an individual.”
The prevailing hardship, he explained, “is not an automatic occurrence but a result of long time neglect of things that should have been done and the doing of things that shouldn’t have been done,” stressing that it was time that everyone returned to farming.
Earlier, the president of CCN, Dr. David Onuoha, said the team was in the state for a National Executive Council (NEC) meeting and deemed it necessary to visit the governor as a mark of respect, “especially because you are one of our own, as a Pastor.”
He said it was the first of such meetings for the year 2024 while revealing that the choice of Akwa Ibom was due to its peaceful, clean, serene environment as well as availability of quality infrastructure, especially good road network.
