The vice presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Peter Obi has again bemoaned the level of the development of Nigeria, insisting that any country in the world that cannot feed its citizens should not be regarded as developing.
Mr Obi made the statement while speaking to journalists during the seminar organised by Zero Hunger Initiative in Sokoto on Monday.
The former Anambra State governor said that when Nigeria was compared to other countries of the world in all indices of development, that it became clear that a lot was still needed to be done by a succession of Nigerian leaders since, according to him, “meaningful development required sustained and long period of uninterrupted good.”
Obi further said that the progress of Nigeria lied in translating its natural endowment to tools for development.
His words: “Every day, we talk about Nigeria being a country blessed by God with large expanse of arable land, good and benign climate, evenly distributed seasons of the year, among others, but the irony of our development is that we are yet to harness those natural endowments. One way to cure ourselves of this malady is by electing capable leaders. This is why I keep advocating the Chinese model, where people are elected to higher offices after they have manifestly done well in lower offices.”
On the way forward for the country towards achieving self-sufficiency in food production, Obi said that it was achievable once Nigerians, the government and the governed, start to take agriculture seriously.
He assured that if elected, the government of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar would focus on reinvigoration of the agriculture sector having done extensive background study on the gaps in that sector and how it will be filled.
Obi rounded the seminar by visiting the Sultan of Sokoto Muhammadu Sa’ad Abubakar III who urged him to keep up the spirit of tolerance, humility, accommodation, love and humility and he is known for in Nigeria.
