Peoples Redemption Party gubernatorial aspirant in Adamawa State, Lt. Cdr Ibrahim Babainna (rtd) has said he intends to transform the state into Nigeria's agri-business powerhouse to tackle the high unemployment rate the state has become notable for.
Presently, over 54% of Adamawa's labour force are classified as unemployed by the National Bureau of Statistics making the state home to the second highest number of unemployed people in the country.
Th retired Naval officer and founder of the IBI Foundation made this known during his official declaration at a well-attended ceremony in Yola, Adamawa state.
"Adamawa is a great state. It is a state bursting with potentials. It is a state that is sitting on a throve of resources, human and material. Yet, it is also a state whose internally generated revenue accounts for less than 10% of its budget annually.
"It is a state listed among the top three states in Nigeria as states with the highest unemployment and underemployment rates. The National Bureau of Statistics in 2021 revealed that over 54% of our people are unemployed while 25% are under-employed. I ask myself, how does a state where 74% of its land mass is arable suffer from unemployment in a country where food security is a constant threat?
"More importantly, I immediately see the connecting dots between the under-utilisation of our human and natural resources and the multi-dimensional poverty our people suffer," Babainna said.
Speaking to the gathering of PRP members and other residents of the state, he gave reasons behind his decision to aspire for the office of governor.
"I have a vision of a greater Adamawa. We can leverage our resource of comparative advantage – arable land – more innovatively to re-energise the Adamawa economy. Previous administrations and development partners of the state have all identified the catalytic power this can have and we intend to explore this to even greater depths, introducing cutting edge technology in agricultural production, processing and marketing.
"Agri-business has the potential of not only properly harnessing our abundant human and natural resources, it can become the centre around which all our other policies and activities as a state revolve.
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"It is a sector in which we are culturally competent in exploiting. It is a resource which our old and young, men and women can all participate in. It is a sector whose value chain is so extensive that a place can be found for everyone. Focused industries for processing, packaging and marketing of value-added products and by-products of our agricultural outputs will be at the core of our Greater Adamawa vision.
He said that as long as the state continues to under-utilise its human and material resources, the ability to meet even one of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals remains a mirage.
"A poor economy will always result in weak results in attaining the SDGs. A poor economy also creates the right condition for strife, violent conflict and sub-national tensions.
"Better economic conditions coupled with sincere leadership will help strengthen security and restore peace. A decrease in poverty is also inevitable when inclusive economic policies that put the people at the centre of controlling their resources is implemented. People-centric leadership is the cornerstone of our great party, the PRP. Our founding fathers understood this perfectly. You can't have sustainable development that excludes the people," he said.
"My journey to this point has been long. For years, I have nursed a burden to assist in the upliftment of the vulnerable, the downtrodden, the forgotten and the helpless. This passion for improving the socio-economic status of those ‘left behind’ by society has led me to engage in numerous projects both within and outside our dear state, Adamawa over the past five years through the IBI Foundation.
"In doing this, I have consistently been reminded of the fact that there are some degrees of change and impact on society that can only be attained through far-reaching policies envisioned and implemented by compassionate, visionary political leadership," he added.
"We can, with your support, build a greater Adamawa by re-tooling our educational, cultural, political, technological and healthcare systems to become better honed to improve our agricultural productivity. Adamawa can earn massive income from becoming an agri-business specialized state. Domestic and international markets for raw and processed agricultural products are in abundance.
"My vision of a Greater Adamawa is one where every single productive citizen is gainfully employed in pulling in one direction: the socio-economic prosperity of the state leveraging on speciailisation in agri-business, building a society where indeed, young or old, male or female, regardless of religion or ethnicity, ‘no one is left behind’," Babainna told the crowd.