WEALTH CREATION THROUGH AGRIC LINKED INDIGENOUS INDUSTRIALIZATION-A PARADIGM SHIFT Very often we listen to politicians brag about how they ‘assisted’ members of their constituency get jobs in establishments. Many even brag that they have had several ‘empowerment’ programs aimed at women and the youth like giving out Motorized Rickshaws (Keke Napep), Sewing Machines, Vulcanizing Pumps, Taxi Cabs, wrappers, Commercial Motorcycles (Okada) etc, which are all temporary opiates. We even read aspirants declare that legislators cannot delve into public procurement within their constituency. We also read some of them make claims that suggest politics to them is a profession and means of livelihood. Statements like, you have to carry bag for a god father before you are qualified to vie for elective posts. I cringe every time I read such declaration from politicians and they hold it as their qualification for the job of representing and managing the commonwealth of our people; in this age and time? That, to me represents the height of myopia,-acute myopia. The world as we know it today is tilting towards wealth creation and creating entrepreneurs and yet we gloat about finding desk jobs, street cleaning jobs and all manner of menial jobs that cannot even provide basic food on the table of the under employed beneficiaries and do not have career progression potentials. Can we honestly say that we have explored all available resources and the stupendous wealth all around us? Can we say that we have picked up all the tools we need for the task before us and that we have tried them without success? The answer is a capital NO. OUR PROMISE We promise Credible and Impactful representation aimed at bettering the living standard of our people on progressive and sustainable basis. To break them free from the shackles of imitations and limitations. I speak specifically about our zone-Imo North Senatorial Zone, also known as Okigwe Zone. It is disheartening that a people and place blessed with such an abundance of arable and fertile land can still go cap-in-hand searching for the next meal or the next job. It is even more disheartening that we ooze hunger and latch on the next allocation and the crumbs that fall off the table of some self-acclaimed political leaders. We are deliberately blinded to the enormity of the wealth surrounding us that it will take one solid act of defiance to break. I want to enlighten us a bit. OUR CONSTITUENCY Every Ward in our constituency has not less than 2,000 hectares of arable land. Our land tenure system supports shifting cultivation and rotational farming while farm lands are mostly communally owned, as against being individually owned. These farmlands cover vast hectares and their chief product of cultivation is CASSAVA. To fix nitrogen, we often intercropped our cassava with melon (Egusi) and Okro. Our grandparents didn’t know this but they were enriching the land. Little wonder that one of our local delicacies of great significance was ogbara oti (Melon seed Cakes). Now let us look at numbers as it concerns CASSAVA. According to International Institute for Tropical Agriculture, IITA, Cassava has a yield of 10.6 Metric Tonnes per hectare (in Nigeria). If each of the 64 wards in our Zone were to commit 500 hectares of land each to an Integrated Cassava Project, then we would have 32,000 hectares of land for cassava production, yielding 339,200 tonnes of cassava per annum. The average global prices of cassava pellets and chips hover around $300-600 per Metric Tonne (MT), (N50, 700 – 101,500). Cassava chips and pellets are the acceptable form through which cassava can be exported. Cassava chips/Pellets are used in producing Ethanol, Glucose, Flour, Livestock feed, Starch, Biscuits, Bread, Adhesives etc. Interestingly, supply of cassava chips and pellets is just 30 per cent of the total demand. THE MACHINERY REQUIREMENT The main machinery/ equipment required for this project consists of Cassava peeling machine, Automatic Washing machine, Cassava grater, Motorized machine, Grinding and dryer, Automatic chipping system machine, Automatic pelleting machine, Weighing scales, Washing tanks and Packaging bags. The only raw materials are cassava tubers (which is 100 per cent available and abundantly farmed and found in our constituency). The required machinery for this project is locally available. The spare parts can also be procured locally. We can also massively source it from China and India at even far cheaper prices with after sales service and maintenance that will also create its own jobs. The normal name plate capacity of the cassava processing plant we intend to deploy is over five tonnes of chip per day and five tonnes of pellet per day in one shift of eight hours. The plant will at full capacity process 1,500 tonnes of chips and pellets per annum, working for 300 days in a year. COST OF MACHINERY The total cost of setting up a complete operational plant under a turnkey structure is about N5, 100,000.00 (Five Million, One Hundred Thousand Naira Only. To build each of this class of 1500MT per annum capacity plant in all the 64 wards in Okigwe Zone will take about N326, 400,000.00. REVENUE AND JOB CREATION POTENTIALS OF THIS SCHEME If we take a lower price of $300 for our analysis, the 64 cassava processing plants established in each of the 64 electoral wards in Okigwe Zone at a name plate production capacity of 1,500MT per annum each, will utilize about 96,000MT of cassava Tubers out of the envisaged conservative cassava tuber supply capacity within Okigwe Zone, which will translate into $28.9Million/N4.9billion. Add the raw material revenue derived from the sale of the excess produced cassava tuber of 243,400MT at a very conservative N50, 000 per MT, we will generate addition N12.17billion additional revenue. Through this scheme, we would be increasing the economy and creatively productive capacity of Okigwe Zone by about N17billion. Imagine a total outlay of N326.4million stimulating economic and job creating activities that would yield revenues in excess of N17billion for the economic empowerment, welfare and well-being of the great people of Okigwe Zone. This innovative Agric driven indigenous industrialization scheme, will create over 1000 direct jobs and 10,000-20,000 Agrarian based jobs per annum. HOW DO WE FUND THIS INNOVATIVE SCHEME? I will deploy part of the huge funds that we would set aside in the Constituency Development Trusts Funds that will be put in place, where we would pay in the salaries due to me as a Senator for the empowerment of our Youths and Women and proprietary investments from my flagship company, Taurus Capital & Advisory Services Limited, a Foremost Pan African Investment Banking firm, to raise the seed capital of N76million, which will be matched and complemented by counterpart funding support from foremost global Development Finance Institutions, Foundations, Social Investors to the tune of over N250million. OUR SIGN OFF Always remember that we may not have the Notoriety and Cunning of our political challengers. We may not have the kind of deep pockets that they have (deep pockets developed over 15 years of cornering our commonwealth). But we do have the basic, critical and impactful representation and governance features that they lack, and which include; skills, capacity, competence, character, consolidated political will, responsibility, selfless and passionate innovation to better the lots of our people. We do not seek to reinvent the wheel, but we would creatively deploy our over a decade experience garnered as an apostle in the market place and consummate financial engineer, who clearly understand what target setting and actualization is in the banking industry to bring about the kind of impactful representation never seen in this clime before. They can never imitate us because they do not understand or have what it takes to provide people centric representation and sustainable empowerment. In our next exposition, we would open your eyes to the enormous revenue and job creating opportunities inherent in industrializing the cultivation and processing of MELON (Egusi) and Palm Plantations in Okigwe Zone. The Fourth Tier of Government is very apt and appropriate, if properly structured, to play critical sociopolitical and economic development roles, devoid of non-altruistic petty politics. Thank you my people for your continued support. I remain your humble servant, Dr. Nnaemeka Onyeka Obiaraeri, #MostDistinguishedSenator, Okigwe Zone, 2015-2019 (APGA). Please share this to all your friends and social groups on Facebook. Print out and interpret this exposition to the understanding of our fathers and mothers in the village. God Bless You.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Sep 2014 07:02:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015