By Akinwale Kasali
The Area Consultative Forum, ACF, has described as appalling, the security situation in the country, especially in the North.
The Group said that the neglect of human capital development and other activities capable of facilitating growth in the North, has contributed to the woes and pathetic situation of things in the region, and plunged the region into an unprecedented backwardness in development.
ACF Chairman, and former Minister for Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh, decried this level of insecurity in the region when the Group visited Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State.
Ogbeh led the delegation to Maiduguri, Borno State Capital, to meet with the Governor and condole with him over the killing of over 43 farmers by Boko Haram insurgents in Zabarmari community of the state.
The former minister said politics is the only thriving industry in the region, adding that youths in the region have resorted to violence in other to earn a living.
“We are depressed, very depressed. And anyone of us, of our age, who was not depressed, he was not well-born. Because we have nothing to leave behind for our children, and violence will not sustain us,” a statement on Monday quoted Ogbeh as saying.
“The tragedy of the north today is that the only industry left is politics, and politics alone has never grown any society”
Ogbeh bemoaned the deterioration of the agricultural industry in the region, saying that the region needs to re-grow and find ways out of the current quagmire.
He also unveiled the forum’s plan to revive the region’s economy, saying it will commence a programme geared towards “developing small-scale agro-industries across the north.”
“We have to re-grow Borno state, we have to re-grow the north, we have to re-grow Nigeria. We have no industries, agriculture has declined and our own children have now turned to violence as a means of livelihood.
“Your Excellency, in ACF we have decided that we will not talk too much politics, we decided to focus on something else, we are going to start a program of developing small-scale agro-industries across the north.”
On his part, Governor Zulum thanked the forum for commiserating with him and the State over the killings.
The Governor asked the Federal Government to find lasting solutions to the insurgency in the north-east.
