Poor Leadership Responsible For Failure In Agriculture – Obasanjo

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has identified political instability, poor leadership and global trade imbalance as some of the factors militating against rapid growth of agriculture in Nigeria.

Mr Obasanjo, who also listed weak financial market and rural financial institutions, however challenged the federal government to urgently find solution to joblessness among the youths to avert future crisis.

The hall of the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Ilorin was filled with stakeholders in agricultural sector who came to share from the practical experience of the man who established Operation Feed the Nation as a military head of state over three decades ago.

Delivering the sixteenth lecture entitled ‘Managing agriculture as a business to unlock Nigeria’s agricultural potential’ Mr Obasanjo painted a gloomy picture of how one billion people out of the seven billion throughout the world lack access to adequate food and nutrition.

He listed many factors which include violent conflict and political instability, poor leadership, global trade imbalance and weak financial markets as responsible stagnation or slow growth witnessed in agricultural development in Nigeria.

The former president called for constant training, skills development, personal empowerment and entrepreneurship for the resuscitation of the agricultural sector in the country.

He however sounds a note of warning to the federal government to avert the repercussion of what he called ‘sitting on a keg of gun powder’.