APC Chieftain Tasks FG on Agric, Transportation Policies to Address Economic Hardship

Hammed Shittu in Ilorin

A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State, Dr. Mumin Yinka Ajia, at the weekend tasked the federal government to take a pragmatic move to deploy a cohesive agricultural policy and rejig the country’s transportation system to tackle current socioeconomic challenges currently facing the country.

Ajia stated that such move would go a long way of enhancing economic prospects and reduce the hardship in the country.

The party chieftain, an associate professor of Business Administration at the Lincoln University, Missouri, USA, stated this in Ilorin while answering questions from journalists on the planned nationwide protest on the economic hardship facing the country.

He said that: “There is no doubt that Nigeria is in emergency situations that need urgent attention of the government to bring new lease of life to the populace.

“Nigeria needs a president that would lead from the front by carrying out field job across the states of the federation to complement the desk job he is doing.

“The government should declare emergency on agriculture and map out each state based on their individual comparative advantage on agricultural viability, facilitate tools and implement to facilitate large scale mechanised farming. This can be done with presidential fiat.”

Also, on transportation, the APC chieftain said that the government should think of building light rails in each of the state capital.

According to him, “This could be done through borrowing and it can lead us to prosperity.

“The president should engage country like Brazil to bring in MarcoPolo buses to rid our roads of keke and okada, which is not a civilized way of transportation.

“Farmers have produce in the farms but removal of fuel subsidy had made transportation so expensive to bring their produce down to urban areas.”

To tackle the country’s current economic hardship, the Business Administration lecturer also said that the government should meet with selected and accomplished economic experts, “that could be fished out across Nigeria (and the world over) to work for him rather than cronies.

“These experts need not to be politicians but those people who are ready to serve the country.”

Against the backdrop of planned protest by groups of Nigerians against the current economic hardship in the land, Ajia said that peaceful protest is a hallmark of democracy.

“The protesters should be allowed to protest and should not be harassed but given maximum security to safeguard their lives, those of other citizens, and their property.

“The hardship in the land is very concerning with 40 per cent food inflation and 34.5 per cent overall inflation,” he stated.

The varsity lecturer said that he expected the president, governors, National and State Houses of Assembly to sit down to tackle the identified challenges on behalf of the Nigerian people, as consequences of the protest

“They say they are working presently but it’s not showing. A walk around the markets shows that things are extremely difficult,” he stated.

Ajia, who said that dialogue can be employed while the protest was going on, however, added that people have the right to show their displeasure peacefully.

“The government could identify leaders of the protest movement, meet with them to assure them of meeting their demands or discuss such demands they could not meet. Probably, the protest may be called off.

“It took the government 14 months to negotiate and pass law on minimum wage. One wonders how they can negotiate a call-off for the protest and implement the demands,” he stated.