A female Cleric and Agriculturalist, Bishop Deborah Macfoy Akachukwu, has tasked the government at all levels to as a matter of urgency design a robust and realistic strategic plan for the nation’s Agricultural sector.
She said that no amount of food importation into the country would tackle hardship and other problems affecting the people in the country.
Akachukwu, who is the Spiritual leader of the Revival City International Retreat and Prayer Center Enugu, noted that the only way out of the mess is for policy makers in all tiers of government, federal, state and Council areas, to stop paying lip service to the Agricultural sector.
While proffering solutions to some of the problems, the Clergy stated that it is no longer news that Nigerians are dying of hunger in their own father land, which is richly endowed with abundant natural resources and fantastic vegetation owing to wrong policies by those in authorities.
She made this known while speaking with newsmen in Enugu on the present economic hardship being faced by Nigerians, particularly as it concerns food scarcity and high cost of living in the country.
The Agriculturist-turned-Cleric, noted that the most worrisome aspect of the ugly situation is that the nation’s political leaders are yet to come to terms with the ugly development.
The Bishop regretted that the situation which has continued to linger unaddressed, has adversely affected other sectors of Nigeria’s economy, because the food chain problem, she noted, always touches every aspect of the economy, adding that no amount of importation can solve the problem.
“So, what Nigeria as a nation needs now urgently to tackle this serious problem, which cannot be solved just one day, is for the various political Chief Executives, the president, governors and local government Chairmen to rise up and start engaging experts in Agriculture to assist them come up with sincere practicable strategic plan.
She urged all Nigerians to pick up their farm implements and return to the bush for land cultivation. She also called on governments to start looking inwards on how to revive some of the abandoned agricultural programmes that boosted food production in the past across the country such as establishment of farm settlements in all the 774 local governments areas of Nigeria.
