Unemployment: Expert tasks govts. on investment in agriculture to fight poverty, insecurity

Mr Promise Amahah, an economic expert, on Thursday urged government at all levels to invest aggressively in agriculture to address rising unemployment and insecurity in the country.

Amahah gave the advice while reacting to statistics of unemployment rate released by National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) during an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja.

The NBS had on Friday released a report that Nigeria’s unemployment rate rose to 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020.

He said pursuing food security through enhanced investment in the agricultural sector remained the most potent tool in addressing insecurity and rising unemployment.

According to him, the rate of unemployment is a great concern which requires a desirable and urgent attention.

He said that addressing unemployment through agriculture would help to stem the high level of insecurity being experienced in the country.

“The rising numbers of unemployment and poverty are key indicators to possible reasons for rapidly growing security concerns.

“It is clearly obvious that the huge investment in fighting insecurity through military hardware as against agricultural machinery and equipment is a critical cause for concern by any right thinking person” he said.

Amahah, who is also the president of Nigerian Young Farmers Network (NYFN), said that a reasonable percentage of the huge investment made on military hardware would reduce insecurity if channeled into agriculture.

“There is no doubt that unemployed individuals provide an easy fodder for crime. The urgent next step is for governments to immediately review their investment in agriculture for food security as a dependable approach to addressing insecurity” he said.

The expert stated that it was unarguable that agriculture was still the highest employer of labour in the country.