It’s Either Otti…Or It’s Otti (6) – By Uche Nwosu

It’s Either Otti…Or It’s Otti (6) – By Uche Nwosu

Re-Agricultural Revolution! Like Okpara, Like Otti!

Any government that wants to succeed and emblazon itself on the verge of history must have agriculture as its driving policy.

Agriculture provides wealth for individuals, groups and nation/state.

It creates employment, puts food on the table, provides happiness, ensures healthy living, places smiles on the face, affords prestige, ensures interconnectivity, gets easy wealth with little sweat etc. Its value chain is immeasurable, numerous & uncountable.

This is a latent truth! And this is what Governor Alex Chioma Otti OFR discovered as he was preparing to occupy the Abia White at Afara. He envisaged it, grasped it when he was preparing and indeed began to run with it immediately he was sworn as executive governor of Abia State on May 29, 2023.

His performance in agriculture has been very elucidating & sparkling like that of Dr Michael Iheonukara Okpara’s Government of the defunct Eastern. They form the nexus that gave birth to the New Abia.

Otti’s administration has copiously shifted from subsistence farming to commercialised, value-chain-driven agribusiness economy.

Just recently, the state government empowered over 18,600 farmers with verified inputs, launching localised joint projects across the 17 LGAs of the state. The state administration under Dr Alex Chioma Otti OFR has recovered some abandoned farms settlements built by the defunct Eastern Nigerian Government’s in the 1950s and 1960s.

The Michael Iheonukara Okpara Government used agriculture as a spring board to revamp the regional economy; building structures, feeding the Region, attracting investments, building schools and infrastructures, increasing foreign earnings etc.

Okpara raised the economy of Eastern Region from zero point to the highest pedestal thus making it the fastest growing economy in the world at that time. That is what Otti intends to achieve; to push Abia economy from point zero to the tertiary level.

While his target is to raise the gross domestic product (GDP) of Abia and Abians through commercialised and small and medium enterprises (SME), the governor has given enough boost to commercialisation of agriculture through various interventions.

With this number (18,634) verified small holders providing with improved crop varieties such as maize, cassava, rice, plantain, pepper, tomatoes as well as organic fertilizers with cash gifts to transport inputs to their various locations, Abia definitely is on the way to sizable food production next year.

Under its programme of Improved Inputs, Increased Yields, Sustainable Prosperity For Farmers, the Otii’s government is currently working with farmers to attract investors.

Now, Abia is approaching increased their farm yields and enhance food production. This will also help in stimulating the economy and making farmers smile to the banks while those that like food would eat out their stomachs.

After all, is it not better to eat & fall on the roadside than to starve onto kwashiorkor & become an embarrassing image with swollen head, protruding belly & skeletal framework?

In 2024, the government of Alex Otti sent 300 Abia youths and farmers to Nasarawa State for a specialised training programme in modern and mechanized farming.

It was a 2-week intensive practical programme whose focus was mechanised farming, modern agricultural practices and wealth creation across the agro-allied value chain.

The participants were given various startup cash that ranged from N3million to N15million to take off. This however, depended on their study they carried out and projections and the amount they arrived on.

Recently, Otti’s government began an innovation. The government launched the Abia Agricultural Intervention Project (AIP) during which it inaugurated an innovation called Team Managers in each of the 17 LGAs of the state to boost food production and security and all grow the economy.

Each LGA was advised to focus on the agric seeds it has comparative advantage on. Do what you can do best, they were told. Is it ginger, piggery, pepper farming, cassava processing, poultry etc? Produce in great quantity and give food a boost.

This joint venture by Otti’s administration and LGAs in the state is what is needed now to bring quantum food on our table and grow the economy of Abia that has been left comatose over 35 years.

To be continued…

Uche Nwosu is an Umuahia, Abia State-based Journalist.

A Shell BP Double Award Winner On Environmental Pollution & On Investigative Journalism – Year 2000