Beyond infrastructural renewal, Governor Alex Otti, has his eyes on grassroots development. During his campaigns, he emphasized on mechanisms for sustainable development of the grassroots and the community people.
By Godwin Adindu
Beyond infrastructural renewal, Governor Alex Otti, has his eyes on grassroots development. During his campaigns, he emphasized on mechanisms for sustainable development of the grassroots and the community people. He was particular about the youth segment of Abia and how to harness their energies and channel same for productive action.
Otti is living his talk and has launched some programmes designed as strategies of empowerment to support small businesses and empower the grassroots. The NANO Business Operation and the Agribusiness Skills Acquisition Programme come to mind.
The launch of NANO Business Operation in Abia is a clear effort towards engaging and empowering the community people and the grassroots. Otti designed this for the lowly people operating in the informal sector under a cooperative society arrangement supervised by the office of the Senior Special Assistant on Co-operative Societies. They are to receive interest free revolving loans of N5 million naira per ward and this is spread across the 184 wards of Abia State. This comes to a total of N920 million naira pumped into the informal economy of Abia State.
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The NANO business operators are petty traders, lower than SMEs. The loan is a N100,000 interest free revolving loan under the state Support Co-operative Scheme. Every ward is to form a co-operative society and nominate fifty persons who will be recipients of the loan.
The loan will have a repayment window of four months, after which recipients will start returning it progressively for six months. Seventy-five percent of recipients are expected to be women involved in petty trading and petty businesses. The loan is a fulfilment of the Governor’s promise during the campaign to release part of his security vote to support small businesses. A local council like Obingwa, which has eleven Wards, would access N55milion. More co-operative loans are on the way
There is also the Agrobusiness Skill Acquisition Programme, which is a train-the-trainer initiative to equip Abia youths on modern techniques for integrated farming. Three Hundred Abia youths have just returned from Nassarawa State where they were mobilized by the state to participate in this training.
The idea is to expose participants to the untapped wealth creation and job securities in integrated farming. Governor Otti also aims to develop resource persons who will be empowered to grow the agric sector of the state and participants are expected to train three other persons in their localities.
The Governor partnered with Called Servant to Serve (CSS FARMS) Gora in Nassarawa state. The centre is a registered International Skills Acquisition Center (ISAC) on agrobusiness. Apart from bearing the total expenses for the programme, the Governor also paid stipends to the 300 participants with a promise to provide them with more incentives to enable them establish their farms.
The trainees were carefully selected from INEC political wards in Abia and are expected to train additional three persons from their wards and transfer the knowledge acquired from CSS Farms.
Before their departure, the Chief of Staff to the Governor, Pastor Caleb Ajagba, told the ambassadors that they are being trained to lead the war against food shortage in the country and to grow the economy through abundant food supply.
The training covered five agribusiness value chains / enterprises: Open field farming (cassava, yam, rice, and maize Etc); Poultry (Broiler and Layers); Fishery (hatchery and Nursery); Green House and Hydroponic farming and value addition. A participant from Obingwa LGA, Amaraizu David Nnabugwu, says the programme which was a two weeks package was very resourceful and educative as many professors and doctorate degree holders lectured on all the listed categories of agrobusiness enterprises.
They were as well exposed to over fifteen agrobusiness training exercises and these include: leadership Skills Development in Agrobusiness; Entrepreneurial Skills Development in Agrobusiness; Introduction to Agrobusiness and value chain; Fish farming; Rice and Maize Production; cassava and yam production; Poultry Production and Management; Digital Agricultural and Agribusiness; Cassava and Yam Production; Poultry and management; Digital Agricultural and Agribusiness;
Branding Sales and Marketing of Agricultural Produce; Ruminant Nutrition and Fattening; Value Addition and Export; Financing Agriculture; The Power of Vision; Business Plan for an Agricultural Business; Irrigation and Farm Machinery Training.
Bertha Ehumadu from Isiala Ngwa South also testified that the practical session of the programme was topnotch as it was carried out by CSS experts who devoted their time to make it an interactive and educative session replicating all that was lectured into real life scenario. She said that Field Practice by the trainees were carefully explained on all the processes involved in various fields of their areas of specialization.
The management of CSS integrated farms chaired by Prof. John Kenneth Okpara threw their support to encourage Abia trainees by providing a take home tablet PC for all trainees and uploaded their lecture materials for convenience and easy access to personally review their training when practicing on their own. The graduation ceremony of the training witnessed the presence of Dr. A Otti and his team who, out of their busy schedule, made it to CSS integrated Farms in Gora, Nassarawa state to reaffirm the government support and assurance to enable them hit the ground running immediately.
Indeed, Governor Otti is deploying many strategies of sustainable development to engage the Abia grassroots.
Adindu wrote from Umuahia
