Akwa Ibom Vegetable Revolution and the Value Chain
By Joe Iniodu-
The marching order by Governor Udom Emmanuel that the Akwa Ibom Enterprise Employment Scheme, AKEES, an initiative of his administration evolves a modality to mop our youths from the street and put them in productive ventures where they can earn a living and not be for living is already bearing yields in direct and indirect terms.
AKEES mandate which in part is the reawakening of the spirit of enterprise in Akwa Ibom people has achieved its objective even within the short span of time it has existed with the prospects to achieve more clearly signposted. The initiative which engages in painstaking study and research has conceived several business and entrepreneurship models which have shorter gestation and realization periods. It has been the view of AKEES, that for the initiative to succeed, it must adopt models that can engage the youths and create wealth within periods as short as possible.
AKEES as an initiative de-emphasizes money and encourages the cultivation of ideas. Its view is that money does not create ideas but ideas create money. When it therefore facilitated the creation of facility centres in tailoring, carpentry and that of welding which is yet to be fully operational, it was to give boost to those with ideas who may have difficulty in accessing facilities that can enable them translate such ideas into reality.
It is this operational modality that has sired 85 small and medium enterprises that have employed 2,017 Akwa Ibom indigenes on salaries ranging from N42,000 to N120,000. The prospects for the emergence of more of these enterprises and the absorption of more of the Youths are bright. With this development, the hope of youths has been renewed and their future more secured. They are progressively jettisoning that lazzer-fair life that consigned them to a dependence that easily eased into criminality or sub-culture undertakings. Today, willing youths are gainfully engaged with access to disposable income assured. Soonest, Akwa Ibom would no longer have idle youths whose minds are the devil’s workshop.
But the most intriguing of AKEES engagement models is the vegetable revolution and the long value chain located on the spectrum. About 22 different types of vegetables have been identified, experimented and are currently thriving in the State. Some of them include tomatoes, onions, cucumber, water melon, carrot, okoro, egg fruits, garbage, radish, lettuce, pepper, garden egg etc. Farming creates various layers endued with beneficial economic value to any partaker in the chain. In the many of the vegetable farms scattered in the State and which yours truly visited, the numerous value chain has effectively taken the youths off the street.
Let us take the case of a tomatoe farm yours truly visited off Airport Road. The farm which is about eight hectares has 26 farm hands who are effectively engaged and on monthly stipend. Before, planting, a farm must be cleared and harrowed. In other words, those proficient in these aspects of work like a tractor driver are part of the chain. There are also people to till the beds and others to put manure and this brings the poultry farmer into the matrix. Those who produce and sell chemicals used for spraying to avoid pest like blossom end rot etc and those who undertake the spraying are also part of the chain. There are also activities like borehole drilling, pump installation and other services which all condense as complements to the processes from planting to harvesting to marketing.
But there is an aspect in the value chain that yours truly wishes to highlight and elucidate in detail. It is an area that abinitio looked unimportant but has proved itself to be a money spinner. The moral intended in elucidating this is that any other aspect that is given meaningful attention can also be the goldmine like the one in the allegorical tale below.
Mr. Uyo James Michael from Obot Akara had about a year ago visited the Co-ordinator of AKEES, Elder Ufot Ebong, a Senior Special Assistant to Governor Udom Emmanuel on Due Process and Bureau of Technical Matters. A former Senior Officer with the oil giant, Shell Petroleum, Engineer Ebong is not exactly warm to indolence neither is he kindly disposed to idle alms solicitations. So Uyo who had gone to ply the common trade that suffices in our clime had the wrong side of Ebong. Fortuitously, it was the day harvest was being done on one of AKEES demonstration farms and there was high demand for baskets. Ebong in his admonition to Uyo advised him to take his destiny in his hands by applying himself properly. He cited the example of the supply of baskets for the tomatoe revolution that had just begun. Uyo took the admonition kindly and today has more than 20 people integrated into the basket weaving business and are all doing pretty well.
Today, Uyo Michael has ceased to be loafer and hanger-on. He is now a focused businessman who enjoys to be called The Basket Man to illustrate the dignity with which he holds his trade. In his interaction with Yours Truly, Uyo had this to say, “Let the Youths key into the Dakkada Philosophy” noting that it is a magic wand.
The story of Uyo is like many others who have located niches in the value spectrum of any of the AKEES initiatives or any area of business. Governor Emmanuel in his espousal has always stated that all you have is all you need to get what you want. The problem with many of our people is that they refused to task themselves with the rigour of thinking. God has endowed us with faculties to reason out solutions for challenges but we prefer options that come with ease. Now is the time for us to put up our thinking caps, Jettison cynicism, internalize the ideals contained in the Dakkada Philosophy and allow its convictions especially as expressed by AKEES initiative to fire our dreams and lead us into embracing its tenets.
Joe Iniodu is a public affairs analyst
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