Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
The Director of Agribusiness Incubation Centre, (ABIC), Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, Dr Philips Nto has advocated the adoption of agriculture and industrial model of the late Premier of Eastern Nigeria for accelerated national development.
Nto urged both the Federal Government and the states that make up the defunct Eastern Region to study and adopt Okpara’s models for the economic growth of the country.
The former Commissioner for Finance, Abia State, who spoke at the sidelines of the 2nd Michael Okpara memorial lecture organised by the university, regretted that successive governments have failed to build upon the legacies of the late Premier.
Ikengaonline reports that the Okpara memorial lecture was delivered by the Chairman of the South East Development Commission, SEDC, Chief Emeka Wogu.
Nto noted that “if the governments after Dr Michael Okpara had sustained his industrial and agricultural revolution, Nigeria would not have been talking about food insecurity and unemployment now.”
Dr Nto recalled that Okpara, through agriculture and industrialization, elevated the Eastern Region to the fastest growing economy in Africa before the 1966 coup.
According to him, “Okpara built farm settlements across the region. He established cocoa, rubber, and palm plantations. He established breweries, hotels, factories, ceramics, and other factories, which were all flourishing.”
He said that apart from developing the fastest growing economy in Africa through agriculture, Dr Okpara also ensured that the value addition to agriculture remained the best.
The Director insisted that if successive governments had sustained those models and policies initiated by Okpara, Nigeria would have recorded accelerated development.
Nto argued that it was not late for the states to key into those initiatives by reviving the farm settlements and crop plantations scattered across the nine states of the former Eastern Region.
He also advised policy makers to seek out the development plan of Dr Okpara, where he painstakingly itemised how to employ agriculture and industrialization for the development of the region.
