By Innocent Ene Ojukwu
Before the advent of the Governor Umahi administration, Ebonyi State which hitherto was known as the food basket of the Nation was anything but that. With her vast arable land, Ebonyi State had the potential of feeding the Country and even exporting to African Countries, but like most other States in Nigeria, Ebonyians abandoned their comparative advantage in Agriculture for easy oil money.
With Agriculture at the back burner, Ebonyi State which produced and exported rice and other staple food to West Africa in the early 60's was barely able to produce food for her sustenance as a majority of her people were out there looking for nonexistent white-collar job while the aged were left to produce for subsistence.
When Umahi took the reins of power as Ebonyi State Governor, the situation was dire. The Country was facing her worst recession in record history - oil receipts were dwindling with the speed of light, all tiers of governments were unable to finance their budgets while salaries of workers could no longer be paid. Everywhere you looked, hunger was stalking the land and stories alien to the Country were being told, of people who sold their wards for food to those who stole food their neighbors had on the fire. From every indication, it was obvious that something had to give if Nigerians were to survive.
Governor Umahi for one saw the situation as epitomizing a stirring awakening that will propel the State to explore other avenues of making it without depending on the capricious oil receipts. He believed that if the socio-economic realities present different times and problems, that the solution must be different also. A proposition, that is no doubt biological, "adapt or die". But Gov Umahi was not merely interested in Ebonyi State surviving the recession, but in building a solid economy that future recessions would not buffet. His vision of where he was taking the State was quite clear.
As a let's-do-it-better leader and a possibility thinker who believes in exploring new vistas of opportunity, governor Umahi saw Ebonyi State's comparative advantage in Agriculture as a sure route to the economic prosperity of the State. To this end, he evolved and unveiled an agricultural road map that was practical, ambitious, and revolutionary. Everybody that has seen it, has seen vision and focus and a man aware of where he was going.
To ensure that his agricultural policy did not go the way of previous administrations, which were rich on rhetorics but vacuous in action, being himself a son of a successful farmer, Gov Umahi frontally tackled the reasons why Nigerians had not made it in the sector besides the trite excuse of the lure of oil money.
Governor Umahi summarized the failure of the past by previous administrations in the agricultural sector as " policy failure ".To him, recognizing what is wrong was simply not enough, as action, courage, and political will are needed to make a difference. He communicated his decision to succeed where others failed as he folded his sleeves and went to work.
He was firm of the conviction that Ebonyi State with a favorable climatic condition and available arable land where such food and cash crops like rice, yam, cassava, groundnut, Cowpea, Maize, oil Palm, Cashew, Citrus, etc can thrive in commercial quantity has no business with hunger nor poverty.
Umahi introduced the following policies and programs to drive his resolve to make a difference in the agricultural sector. These well thought out policies includes; 1). One Man, One hectare. 2). Buyback policy. 3) Interest-free loan to farmers and Agro-allied processors. 4) Purchase of Commercial farming machineries.
The above policies ensured that a gamut of conditions which previously discouraged people from engaging in farming were taken care of by the administration. For instance, credit was a major problem facing almost all farmers, especially, the unemployed youths but through the Umahi policy, the problem of how to raise money, was no longer there.
It is worthy of note to point out that this outstanding performance of His Excellency Engr Dr David Nweze Umahi in the agricultural sector and the success it has recorded in increased food production has elicited several awards of excellence from several quarters. The role the State played in the survival of Southern Nigeria within the two weeks of Northern food embargo is equally worthy of note.
But above celebrating that role that Ebonyi State played in checking the food scarcity and hunger pang is the red flag that the embargo represents as it readily calls to mind the demise of the defunct USSR and the nexus between food scarcity and national security.
The recent food embargo on the South of Nigeria should serve as a wake up call to all who are yet to embrace the return to the farm clarion call which Engr Umahi of Ebonyi State is leading.
....Innocent Eneh Ojukwu wrote from Ebonyi State. NNL.
