FG to bridge infrastructural gap in rural areas with Integrated Rural Development model

FG to bridge infrastructural gap in rural areas with Integrated Rural Development model

By: Idris Umar Momoh, Benin

The Federal Government of Nigeria says it has adopted Integrated Rural Development (IRD) model in its National Development Plan to bridge the infrastructural development gaps between the rural and urban areas with a view to stemming the tide of rural- urban migration among the youths in search for greener pastures in the city centres.

Clem Agba, the minister of state for budget and national planning, gave the hint in a remarks in Benin City at the weekend  shortly after being decorated as the grand patron of  the Universal Reggae Fans Movement (URFAM).

Agba said the integrated rural development will entail construction of roads, provision of off-grid solar lights and broadband technology to make the rural areas more comfortable and habitable for youths to live in instead of migrating to the urban centres and the overseas in search for nonexistence white collar jobs and greener pastures.

He opined that the need for the integrated rural development was also occasioned to ensure that farm produce from the rural areas get to the market on time to avoid post- harvest waste.

According to him, "like, I have always said, and this also came out when we were working on the National Development Action Plan (NDAP), the rural areas produced 90 percent of the foods we eat. Of the about 10,000 tons produced by the rural dwellers, about 6,000 tons are wasted before getting to the market.

"60 percent of our people lived in the rural areas. For what we found out within the states and local governments is that all the development are put or located only in the city centres, that is in the urban areas.

"I have been a very strong advocate of  integrated rural development involvement, that is why you see, even in Edo state, in the areas where federal government have intervened most of them are in the rural areas around the agro-corridors so that what we produce can at least get to the market so that we will be able to feed ourselves.

"This has been adopted now in the plans as an integrated rural development where we all agreed to begin to take roads to the rural areas, take solar light  to the rural areas, to take broadbands technology to the rural areas so that the youths can have something to do.

"These are opportunities. The only reason the youths leave the rural areas for the urban areas is in search for job opportunities. So, once we take the opportunities to them in the rural areas, the rural-urban drift will stop. The inflows or human congestion in the urban areas will reduce, every corridor in the urban areas will reduce, and Nigeria will be better for it", he said.

Agba, who described Reggae music as aspirational and philosophical, however, called on the youths and Nigerians to allow the message of the music to change their mindset by emancipating themselves from mental slavery.

"There are three colours of the Reggae movement, but we seemed to pay a lot of attentions to the "Yellow colour" which has to do with the "Dancing and Socializing". But I think that we should  spend more on the "Red or blood colour" which draw the veins and the body and think how to change the psyche  of our people.

"We are under mental slavery either as citizens or non citizens because oftentimes we tend to blame government.

"We talked about the inspirations, mental slavery. We need to free ourselves from the mental slavery. That  is one of the things  reggae music preaches about",he added.

On the forthcoming 2023 general elections, he, however, urged electorate to vote for only candidate that had records of good governance and distinguished themselves either as a political office holder or in the private sector.

Earlier, Senior Kings Ogbebor, founder of URFAM noted that the  Reggae music worldwide has broken the boundaries of religion, languages, ethnicity, race, creed, political affiliations and alienations.

Ogbebor added that the investiture of grand patron and patrons of the movement came at the time the world is facing economic crisis, dealing with all types of deadly viruses, mourning the passing of a colonial queen, confusion with conspiracy theories everywhere and war between nations.

Those conferred with patrons of the movement include, Lai Mohammed, minister for information and culture, represented by Alice Ugbe, assistant director, marketing, NTA, Benin network centre, Osagie Obayuwana, a legal luminary and former, Edo state commissioner of Justice and Attorney-General among others.