Former President Olusegun Obasanjo on Thursday declared that Nigeria may not be able to rise above its socio- economic woes and becomes great until it takes agriculture serious.
Obasanjo said agriculture has the capacity to develop entrepreneurs and create millions of jobs for the increasing Nigerian idle population, lamenting that the oil sector which seemed attractive, could only make few millionaires.
The Ota farmer spoke at the Youth Enterprises Summit organised by the Youth Development Centre, an arm of the Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library (OOPL), Abeokuta, Ogun State.
The ex – President who described agriculture as his “second career,” said not many countries in the world were able to attain greatness without recourse to agriculture, recalling that his administration opened doors of opportunity which made billionaires in Nigeria today.
“The truth is this, If we are going to have employment for a millions of youth in this country, it will be mainly in Agriculture business not in Oil and Energy. Oil and energy will give you money; will make few billionaires and multi billionaires.
“I opened the opportunity and they took advantage of it, and I thank them for taking advantage of it. All of those who took advantage of it, in oil and gas, banking, manufacturing and all that.
“All the billionaires we have today, they came out as a result of them taking advantage of those opportunities.
“And I am grateful to them that the opportunity that may administration created, they grabbed it and utilised it. One thing is to create opportunity another thing is to find people who will seize the opportunity and make what they have to make out of it.
“But let take agriculture, we will never make it in this country until we take agriculture seriously. There are not many countries that have made it without taking agriculture seriously,” Obasanjo said.
In his address, the Chairman of the occasion and Deputy Chief Coordinator, OOPL, Ayodele Aderinwa painted a scary picture of poverty awaiting Nigeria and other African nations due to the growing youth population.
Reeling out statistics, Ayodele predicted that African youths population may hit 850million by 2050, saying the wealth creation via entrepreneurship is the way to tackle poverty.
He said poverty alongside other problems had been with African from pre-colonial era, but all challenges were fought and won but poverty war stands undefeated.
“Poverty connotes darkness and to fight the darkness. So, there is need to shine the light of wealth creation on poverty’s darkness,” he said.
The Keynote speaker, Tope Shonubi who spoke on “Youth and Entrepreneurship in Nigeria: Which way forward” and submitted that Nigerian youths have enteyrpreneurship skills, but lack discipline.
Shonubi urged youths to be consistent, humble, self-confident and embrace entreneurship with a view to adding values to human lives.
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