By Israel Dara Sobaloju & Olukanni Olutola

Ile-Ife - Yesterday, in continuation of the tour of Nigeria's minister of Agriculture across Nigeria (Southwest especially) - Audu Ogeh spoke at a town hall meeting organized by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural development. The town hall meeting held in Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, had a lot of dignitaries in attendance which include the Vice-chancellor of the university - Prof Eyitope Ogunbodede, the school's pro-chancellor - Dr Yemi Ogunbiyi, the honorable commissioner of Agriculture, Osun state - and some others. The meeting also saw some numbers of students and staffs from the university, including farmers from 31 villages in the state.

The meeting scheduled to hold by 9am, started by 2pm due to some logistics issue encountered by the minister on his way. The minister in his speech lamented on how the country in the past spent a billion dollar on sugar importation, five million dollars on Rice importation and a little over 5 million dollar on wheat importation. To buttress his point on how importation has dredged Nigeria's economy to the pith of recession, he blamed the Americans for establishing the Structural Adjustment Program (SAP) in Nigeria after the independence of Nigeria. He further talked about the lack of long-term plan by Nigeria which he said has caused most of the problems faced by us today. "Some years ago, I proposed that the Federal government should implement one more ministry, which will be the ministry of the future. This ministry will look into how we can improve for years to come."

"Some 15years ago, I predicted the emergence of Boko Haram in a summit I had in the north. I said they should be watchful because insurgence may soon erupt in the north wearing the face of religion. Nobody did anything about it, and 6 years ago our greatest shock came."

He stated in his closing remark that since the emergence of the present administration, the government have strived to keep and continue with the policy of the past government but few changes were made to them. He further condemned the failure of Nigerians to patronise Nigerian goods as he said the only agricultural equipment produced in Nigeria is Hoe.

During the interactive session with the farmers and all attendees, the minister said the ministry is working hard to ensure prosperity in Agriculture as he said "we can make it just through rearing of livestocks. Lagos alone, consumes over 6,000 cows and 20,000 goats per day, we can work on this."

Replying to a question on the recent and often clash between farmers and herdsmen, he said "the ministry is working on the issue, and a consensus has been reached lately that most of the harmful herdsmen are from neighbouring countries. And I have summited a letter to ECOWAS to address their harmful grazing on our land."

The dean of faculty of Agriculture, Obafemi Awolowo University - Prof Adeagbo Amusan also made an Agricultural proposal presentation to the minister which will cost N3.3 billion, and will yield N5.58 billion in it's first three years. Suggestions were on effect of soil on crop value by Dr Idowu of the school's soil science department and the minister promised to put it to action.

divinehand2003:
With a human population numbering over 22million people sha, 6000 cows/month is justifiable. Any idea how many cows are consumed in Kano which has a similar population on paper?

LionDeLeo:


6000 cows per day not per month, such a huge number.

LionDeLeo:


6000 cows per day not per month, such a huge number.

chuks013:
Dat figure aint correct.....consupmtion of ccow in lagos per month fit evn enta 10 to 15k...considering all d everyday owambe 4 lagos.(headquarters of owambe )

LionDeLeo:
Although, I'm not disputing this, I find the figure rather weird. 6000 cows per day? Wtf. That's a very big number.