Agic, tourism hold key to nation's growth, says Mark
From Abosede Musari, Abuja
SENATE President, David Mark, has said that the primary solutions to Nigeria's poor economic situation would be a diversification from the mono economy and over-dependence on crude oil by the country, to more productive and dependable sectors such as agriculture and tourism.
Speaking at a Strategic Conference held in Abuja yesterday by Leadership Conferences Limited, a subsidiary of Leadership Newspaper Group, the Senate President said that only a holistic integrated agricultural development strategy will help in solving the poverty problem of rural farmers, address unemployment, increase job opportunities and prospects for enhanced farm incomes.
This, he added, would help to discourage youths from the rural areas from drifting to the towns only to face demeaning lifestyles.
According to him, this strategy is needed, especially at this time when the oil price is drastically low; and rural poverty overflowing into the urban centres. Also, he said that if agriculture is taken seriously, food security will be guaranteed, import pressures will be eased alongside some short-term problems such as the pressure on the country's foreign exchange.
"Many oil producing nations have emerged to downgrade us to a comparatively twinkle little star. We are no longer among the world 10 oil and gas producers nor are we among the top 10 with the highest percentage of proven oil reserves. And we will continue to pale into more insignificance as an oil exporter as more supply sources come on stream. Also, the intensified search for alternative sources of energy to oil will definitely affect the elasticity of demand for our crude oil"
"However, the most viable option to oil, the most liberating from its seemingly warm, yet suffocating grip on our national economy, is the development of agriculture," he said.
While he commended the recent shift in attention to solid minerals, Mark warned that the quest to upstage the oil economy with solid minerals as the primary commodity for economic development should be devoid of the psychology surrounding the crude oil story.
While he lamented the situation whereby Malaysia, a country about one third of Nigeria, has developed the oil palm seedling, which they got from Nigeria several years ago, into improved hybrid which they are ready to offer as aid to improve Nigeria's agriculture sector, the Senate President urged that there should be political will to develop the agriculture sector for Nigeria to reposition itself economically.
"We have never been short of ideas in this country. It is the political will power to fully implement those ideas that has always been lacking. However, given Nigeria's unique endowment of rich land resources and many agricultural produce, the development of agriculture should be the fulcrum of our final strategy. We should also build the tourism industry," he said.
Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Adamu Aliero, who was in agreement with Mark's point, said attention should be fully shifted to agriculture and solid mineral, the later, which he said is able to earn Nigeria trice the nine billion Rand currently being earned from solid minerals by South Africa.
