Philanthropist advises FG to provide farm inputs for IDPs
NAN-AE-9
Inputs
Yola, Sept. 15, 2016 (NAN) Mr Daniel Richard, a philanthropist in Adamawa on Thursday urged the Federal Government to provide farming inputs for the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs).
Richard gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Yola.
According to him, keeping IDPs without engaging them poses a security threat in the near future.
He noted that the bulk of the IDPs were farmers, and wonder why government would continue to spend huge resources to feed them.
“The problem of IDPs in the Northeast will be the worst catastrophe we shall experience in the near future if not addressed.
“All the IDPs are farmers, because you cannot find traders among them, neither will you find civil servants among them.
“It will be better if government can open farms and provide farm inputs for them, and you will discover that all of these people will be engaged and leave the camps.
“This idea of keeping them and feeding them is providing opportunities for some people to make money.
“It is not humane to subject people who have their way of life to confinement under the platform of IDPs for too long.
“Their continuous stay in those camps could breed a lot of vices, especially now that you find a lot of indecent activities going on in the camps.
“I believe the government knows what to do but decided to do the reverse, and I advice government to try this and it will see that camps will empty within shortest possible time.’’
The philanthropist urged the people of the state to improve their agricultural practices for self sustainability.
According to him, the era of sharing money on the table is gone because the crude oil business has crashed.
He encouraged the youth to learn to be self-employed, adding that white-collar jobs now, would be difficult to come by in a recessed economy.
He also advised the government to provide an enabling environment for entrepreneurship.
“I want to sound it clear that the era of sharing money is gone
“It is not about APC or PDP, even if Goodluck Jonathan had won, it would have been the same because our economy is in recession.
“Nobody should think Buhari is bad, it is a situation we have found ourselves, but I must mention that most of our challenges are self inflicted.
“No one drinks oil and go to sleep but everybody eats food, but we neglected agriculture and depended on crude oil for too long and today, we are facing the hardship.
“People should only improve on their agricultural practices, farming has been a way of live to our people so, you must not wait until you are told to go back to farm,’’ Richard said.
Richard, who is also an international business mogul recently renovated the Garkida General Hospital in Garkida, his home town at the cost of N65 million.
He also had distributed several trucks of fertiliser to farmers in his community. (NAN)
by Ekemini Ladejobi/Felix Ajide
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