Unemployment: Embrace agriculture, monarch urges youths

Malam Aminu Malami, the District Head of Udubo, Gamawa Local Government Area of Bauchi State, on Monday called on youths to embrace agriculture as a way of tackling unemployment in the country.
Malami, who made the call in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Bauchi, also said that venturing into agriculture would help to tackle food insecurity in the state and the country.
According to him, governments at all levels have prioritised agriculture as one of the key sectors that needs urgent attention and currently receiving serious intervention.
“Both federal and the state governments are currently investing hugely in agriculture with inputs support both for dry season farming and rainy season farming.
“There is therefore the need for our youths to embrace agriculture and tap from its many opportunities because it is the only area they can be gainfully employed.
“Our youths must stop roaming the streets doing nothing, while others travel as far as the southern part of the country in search of jobs that are not available.
“This idleness must stop and agriculture is the way out. It is the only practise that will bring us out of poverty,” he said.

The district head also appealed to the federal and state governments to organise massive awareness campaigns that would change the orientation of the youths toward agriculture.
“Governments should organise massive awareness campaigns, workshops and training in all aspects of agriculture that will help change the attitude of the youths to embrace agriculture as a business.
“This will change their lives for good. They must know that our wealth is in the soil, but we have to dig it out in order to get it,” he said.
The traditional ruler said that his domain was blessed with thousands of hectares of arable land suitable for both dry and rainy season agricultural cultivation but lamented that only few old hands were tapping from such potentials.
“The youths must know that the time that people will just sit and wait on the government to do everything for them was over, we have to make things happen by ourselves,” he said