Some residents of Nsukka in Enugu State have urged the Federal Government to invest more resources to the agriculture and energy sectors.
They made the request in separate interviews on Wednesday.
A banker, Mr Joseph Ugwu, said that more investment in agriculture would not only lead to food security for the country but help reduce poverty and unemployment rates.
“I know government has invested in agriculture but there is need to invest more so the country will achieve food security.
“The current hike in prices of food items in the market is attributed to inadequate investments in the agricultural sector.
“Government should assist states to ensure that every local government has a farm settlement,” he said.
Ugwu said that the farm settlements would not only boost food production but provide employment for millions of jobless youths.
According to him, agriculture was a major foreign exchange earner for the country in the 1960s and 1970s when the nation’s economy was among the best in the world.
Also, a member of staff of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Mrs Regina Obinna, advised the federal government to pay priority attention to the energy sector.
She opined that the energy sector would help to resuscitate the nation’s ailing industries and generate more job opportunities, when fully revitalised.
“Some industries cannot expand or employ more people because they are operating below capacity due to irregular power supply.
“These industries spend substantial part of their budgets, which could have been utilised for increased production, expansion and employment creation, on diesel and petrol to power their machines,” Obinna said.
She further said that, with uninterrupted power supply, many unemployed Nigerians would prefer to set up their own businesses than engage in fruitless search for white-collar jobs.
A former Councillor in Nsukka Local Government Area, Mr Innocent Ayogu, said that more investments in agriculture and energy would help to provide more jobs and reduce poverty.
Ayogu described agriculture and energy as the drivers of other sectors of the nation’s economy.
“All the countries of the world that have achieved the best economies invested hugely in agriculture and energy.
“Agriculture doesn’t only provide food security, it also earns robust foreign exchange for these countries through the export of agricultural products.
“Countries like the U.S.A. and China are leading in science, technology and innovations because they invested massively in the energy sector and can always boast of 24-hour uninterrupted power supply,” Ayogu said.