Dr Chidia Maduekwe, the Director-General, Nigerian Film Corporation, has inaugurated a cooperative group, called ‘K’anyi kesandu’ Multi-purpose Corporative Society, to mobilise Abia communities for commercial agriculture.
The event, which took place at his Asaga-Ohafia country home on Sunday night, was attended by stakeholders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the 11 wards of Ohafia Local Government Area (LGA).
In his speech, Maduekwe said the cooperative would enable the communities to enjoy Federal Government’s intervention programmes in the agricultural sector.
He, therefore, underscored the need for communties to move away from subsistence to commercial farming “so that they can tap from the series of the intervention scheme”.
“We decided to use the flagship of the cooperative to power the issues of good governance in APC, so that what the APC-led government is doing at the national level would trickle down to Abia.
“This is to enable our communities to benefit from federal government’s incentives to encourage and promote rapid agricultural transformation across the federation,” he said.
Maduekwe said that the cooperative would be replicated in all the 17 LGAs and that he was targetting between 2,000 and 3,000 members in each LGA.
He urged communities to take advantage of K’anyi kesandu, which means “let’s get a share of good life”, to earn meaningful life by leveraging government’s interventions.
He said that the cooperative would also be used as a vehicle to drive federal government’s empowerment schemes for the youth.
He said that the group was collaborating with some cooperatives and had signed a memorandum of understanding with a Jos-based Israeli company to ensure success.
Maduekwe charged the stakeholders to take the message to their wards for communities to join the cooperative and key into President Mohammed Buhari’s agriculture transformation agenda.
According to him, federal government is working to secure 100 hectares in all the states of the federation for the development of agricultural plantations.
“If we organise ourselves into cooperatives for rice, cassave and sundry other commercial crop farming we will be qualified to benefit from the programme.
“APC does not believe in sharing money but allocates resources to grow the economy and create wealth among the citizenry,” Maduekwe said.
He expressed the hope that leveraging federal government’s programmes would facilitate the process of development and “redeem Abia from its current state of underdevelopment”.
“I want us to work together to ensure that Abia joins the league of states enjoying APC leadership to move from underdevelopment to high performing state,” he said.
Maduekwe listed some of the government’s programmes he had attracted to the area to include getting 500 youth to enrol in the National Directorate of Employment training programme.
He also said that 100 persons from Ohafia, who registered in the Buhari Support Organisation, had been shortlisted for employment.
Also, a party leader from Nkporo, Mr Iro Ojisi, said that party faithful from the area were hopeful that the cooperative could be used to deliver more dividend of democracy to them.
Ojisi said: “APC of today is not that of yesterday. Many dividend of democracy abound in the party today.
“All we need is to be proactive and organise ourselves in order to be able to benefit from the federal government’s programmes.
“Political office holders from Abia North Senatorial District should collaborate to bring more dividend of democracy for us to enjoy the fruit of our labour for APC electoral fortunes in the last election.”
Another chieftain of the party, Dr Madukwe Ukaegbu, who spoke on “APC good governance agenda,” advocated strict adherence to the principle of Rule of Law.
APC chieftains at the event included a former member of the House of Representatives (Arochukwu/Ohafia Federal Constituency), Chief Arua Arunsi and an Ex-Officio (state executive committee), Mrs Joy Agwara.
Also in attendance was the party’s flag bearer in the 2019 House of Representatives election, Chief Nnamdi Orji, among others. (NAN)