TETFund Boss Urges Vice Chancellors of Nigerian Universities to Redouble Efforts in Actualising Agricultural Transformation

The Executive Secretary, Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund), Arc. Sonny Echono, has stressed the importance of agriculture in addressing unemployment in Nigeria, urging vice chancellors of Nigerian universities to redouble their efforts in actualising agricultural transformation for the country. Echono stated this at the vice chancellors’ roundtable on the implementation of Agricultural Research and Innovation Fellowship for Africa, (ARIFA), with the theme; ‘building the post-vicosa symposium action plan,” in Abuja on Wednesday. The TETFund boss tasked the university stakeholders on operationalisation of Centres of Excellence for Nigeria’s agricultural transformation. He said, “My charge to you is to make this a personal mission because I’m very confident that if we get it right in agriculture in this country, half of our problems will be solved, because it is the easiest means of creating jobs. “Most of those who are being recruited into banditry and insurgency, if they are able to work on the land, they will perhaps prefer to do that.” Also, Echono noted that if there were modern approaches to agricultural practices, revenue would significantly improve, adding that once yields increase, revenue will increase, making the sector more attractive. His words: “As we adopt new technology, develop our mechanisation and irrigation, we will find opportunities through commercial agriculture and we will be able to absorb the graduates that we produce, because more than 60 per cent of those who graduate with agriculture go on to do other things with their lives because we don’t have commercial farming that can absorb this workforce we produced. “But, as we develop the sector, then the demand for personnel will increase and we will be in a position to also improve our revenue. “There are countries that depend solely on agriculture and they are doing very well and it is the one resource that God has blessed us with. “I enjoin you to take this message and the issue very seriously. There may be few mistakes along the line, but we should correct ourselves. We should operationalise the centres of excellence as quickly as we can.” Furthermore, Echono urged Nigeria to learn from Brazil through partnerships, given their track record in the area of agriculture.