·Rt Hon Kingsley Chinda, Minority Leader in HoR, wants mass return to agriculture
By David Ejiohuo
The Mingi of Nembe, King Edmund Daukoru, who was once the minister of petroleum, has called for urgent economic summit to save Nigeria’s economy.
The monarch who marked his birthday on Sunday, October 15, 2023, in his kingdom in Nembe, also called for an agric revolution.
King Daukoru spoke at the Port Harcourt International Airport renamed after the late sage, Chief Obefemi Awolowo, on his way to his kingdom at the weekend.
This is as another prominent son of the Niger Delta, Rt Hon Kingsley Chinda, the Minority Leader in the Federal House of Representatives (HoR), has placed a call for a mass return to agriculture through a federal policy drive.
Speaking to newsmen at the airport, King Daukoru said there is an urgent need an emergency economic roundtable or summit to agree on the right path of recovery for the Nigerian economy and its growth.
The Mingi said the dwindling fortunes of the Nigerian economy and the continuous fall of the nation’s currency, the Naira, were enough to summon urgent attention.
According to the monarch there is need for an economic summit to proffer solutions to the battered economy and the wobbling Naira.
He stressed that the proposed economic summit or conference should be all-embracing to include all stakeholders in the nation’s economic spectrum, both present and past. This, he said, should include those in both private and public sectors.
“The economic growth and recovery summit should be an inclusive and a holistic one and should be made to halt the slide of the Naira. It should aim to rejuvenate the drifting economy”.
The king pointed out at what it takes (both humanly and natural resources) to revive the economy that is already in limbo.
According to him, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the Federal Executive Council, and the National Economic Council, should be quick in whatever decisions that would be made so as to save the economy from further deterioration and the hardship Nigerians were passing through now.
“The issues of oil bunkering, treasury looting, Naira trafficking, the refinery projects, and all the other issues that have brought shame to the country should be at the centre of the summit,” he emphasized.
The monarch pointed out the need for the nation to always find time to discuss or put heads together, especially in times like this, is to come up with solutions that should be accepted and applied for the growth of the nation.
In another development, the minority leader in the House of Representatives (Kingsley Chinda) has expressed concern over the continuous nose dive of the nation’s currency, the Naira.
Port Harcourt-born Chinda expressed this concern when he spoke with journalists at the same airport at the weekend.
According to the Lawmaker, the continuous fall of the nation’s currency and the economy was ominous and it portends danger to a nation like Nigeria.
He emphasized the need for both the Federal Government and the Central Bank of Nigeria to come up with different strategies and methods to check the ugly trend.
Chinda, however, cautioned the Federal Government to as a matter of urgency expedite action on how the nation could be involved in more exports less importation.
He noted that the nation’s major export today, was the crude oil and that the Federal Government should be fast to fix the refineries and look for other local ways to export our goods and services.
He stated: “Another solution to the economy and the Naira woes is in the agricultural development and it’s mechanization”.
Nigeria, he noted, could come to reckoning in near future, if it takes up agric revolution and mechanization seriously.
According to him, anything short of an aggressive agricultural development via mechanization would be counter-productive for the nation and would end up as a disaster for Nigeria.
“This is not the time for sweet talks and fake promises on issues concerning a holistic agricultural project in the nation.
“To me, everybody should own a farm now in Nigeria, because it is as serious as that.”
This is not the time to leave farming in the hands of peasant farmers alone nor the Federal and the state governments.”
He was optimistic that if even 60 per cent of Nigerians could meaningfully engage in the agric value chain, that Nigeria would bounce back in less than no time.
