Democracy day: Insecurity mars FG investment in Agric

 A lecturer at the University of Benin, Professor Eddy Erhagbe has said that the billions of naira the Federal Government (FG) expended on agriculture in the last twenty-three years of democracy may have been hampered by the spate of incessant killings and attacks of rural farmers by hoodlums and bandits. Prof. Eddy Erhagbe stated this yesterday during a program ‘’ Good Morning Nigeria’’ on the National Television Authority (NTA) when responding to question on 23 years of democracy in the country.

The University don pointed that the dividend of democracy being extended to agriculture to help farmers by the government may have been distorted with insecurity as many people could not go to farms for the fear of being attacked or kidnapped just as herders’ animals are every day eating up crops thereby making all efforts in terms of financial support running to billions of naira turned to waste.

 Erhagbe said that in Edo state many people could not go to farm because of insecurity as many farms produce were being eaten up by animals, and this is what happened across many states of the federation where FG had invested billions of naira in terms of inputs and other logistics to ensure sustainable food security in the last twenty-three of democracy.

Reacting to 23 years of democracy in relation to growth in number of politicians to people in commercial activities like farming, Prof. Erhagbe said that the decadence in the infrastructure with collapse of the electricity power grid to less than 4,000 megawatt has worsened the economic situation of the country to a point everybody now wanting to be a politician than productive economic activities in agriculture.