Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike (MOUAU), Prof. Hilary Odo Edeoga has advocated an urgent diversification of the nation’s major resources.
The don said this would enable the citizenry to enjoy the benefits of forward and backward linkages associated with a diversified economy that are multi-cultural in nature.
Edeoga noted that although the country relies on the production and export of crude oil as her economic mainstay, she could still diversify into agricultural productions and industrial manufactures; thereby creating a tripod stand in her economic base.
The VC, who has over the past five years transformed the University to occupy an enviable height gave the clarification in a paper titled ‘Diversifying Nigeria’s Economy: The role of Media in agricultural revolution and food security’ which he delivered at the recent 2015 (maiden) edition of the Special Media Forum organised by the Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Imo State held in Owerri, the state capital.
Dwelling extensively on the importance of agricultural revolution and food security, Edeoga who is an agricultural expert noted that a number of policies and programmes such as Operation Feed the Nation (OFN), Food for all by the year 2000, 7-point agenda, and Vision 2020 put in place by previous administrations in the country to achieve food security eventually crumbled as a result of poor implementation, insufficiency and unreliable data, institutional weakness as well as lack of political will.
Edoga however argued that mass communication could play a decisive role in promoting human capacity development for agricultural revolution and food security in the country.
He described mass media or communication technologies as powerful tools for informing people and providing them with knowledge and skills they require to put agricultural science and production input to best use.
Chairman of the Correspondents’ Chapel, Mr. Athan Agbakwuru in an address earlier explained that the occasion was meant to bring the members and some distinguished Nigerians together for a broad-based discourse on current state and national issues
Agbakwuru disclosed that a flagship project for the chapel in 2016 would be to establish an ultra modern newsroom which had been estimated at N20 million.
Agbakwuru disclosed that a flagship project for the chapel in 2016 would be to establish an ultra modern newsroom which had been estimated at N20 million.
He said the proposed newsroom when established would promote cohesion among members, stating that the chapel had continued to play pioneering role in sanitising the practice of journalism in the state by promoting professional excellence.
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