The Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has advocated for the construction of rural middle class, as the panacea to absorb EndSARS members and unemployed youths.
“The construction of rural middle class through modernised and mechanised agriculture will also solve myriads of Nigeria’s socio-economic challenges,’’ Okechukwu said.
The VON D.G, who is also a chieftain of the All Progressive Congress (APC), said this on Sunday while entertaining questions from journalists in his hometown, Eke, Enugu State on the way forward after the EndSARS protest.
According to him, building a rural middle class is imperative if we are to readily address the despair, discontent, unemployment, hunger, the gross equality and widespread insecurity which cumulatively over decades triggered-off the EndSARS imbroglio in the first place.
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He assured that one of the utility bolts is #BUGREV (Buhari Green Agrarian Revolution), adding that it would create a rural middle class “if state governors and our youths and women sincerely recognize and embrace the agrarian revolution’’.
Okechukwu explained that #BUGREV is an enabler, which will enhance the emergence of a rural middle class in Nigeria.
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“#BUGREV will make the communities more prosperous, minimise urban migration, gross unemployment and make voters less susceptible to stomach infrastructure so as to strengthen democracy in our dear country.
“Accordingly, for our democracy to consolidate and be sustainable, there is an urgent need for youths to embrace #BUGREV so as to construct a middle class in the rural communities to end EndSARS syndrome.
“In short with massive agricultural mechanisation, EndSARS syndrome will be a thing of the past.
“Massive agricultural mechanization is a major component of #BUGREV, where subsistence farmers will migrate to commercial farming and commercial farmers will migrate to large scale farming.
“Green Imperative Project (GIP) an arm of #BUGREV, targets to engage thousands of youths in over 600 tractor servicing centres and over 100 agro processing centres.
“It is the Federal Ministry of Agriculture’s Government to Government Project between Nigeria and Brazil. The tractor servicing centres are meant to avoid the mistakes of the past when farm implements are abandoned at any slight breakdown and rusts away,’’ he said.
Okechukwu further described #BURGEV as the roadmap to absorb EndSARS members; for it would lead to economic recovery in Nigeria, stressing that it would yield 100 million jobs in ten years and offset Nigeria’s foreign debts.
“#BUGREV will upgrade 70 per cent of Nigerians in subsistence farming to mechanised commercial famers; motivate and mobilize more people, especially EndSARS members into agriculture,’’ he said.
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He explained that under the #BURGEV, big famers, cooperative farmers and new entrants from EndSARS stand to benefit from the Anchor Borrowers Programme of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
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