Onyeobi applauds Ogbogu’s post, urges govts to take advantage of agric sector for job creation

The Iyase of Asaba, Chief Patrick Isioma Onyeobi on Thursday congratulated Mrs. Ifeanyi Ogbogu on her appointment by Governor Ifeanyi Okowa as Special Adviser to the governor on agriculture with a call on her to work assiduously to justify the confidence reposed in her for the appointment.

Onyeobi, a former head of service and former Secretary to Government of the defunct Bendel State also praised Governor Okowa for deeming it necessary to extend appointment to an indigene of Asaba, thereby easing the anxiety over the non appointment of an Asaba indigene in the distribution of appointive political offices.

Onyeobi who spoke while receiving in audience the new special adviser who came on a familiarization visit to him said it is a good thing that government by the appointment is giving agriculture the right attention. “Oil is a wasting resource. The future of the country is in agriculture. Attention must be shifted in the direction of agriculture as it has the capacity to absorb the teeming unemployed youths into gainful employment,” he said.

He commended Governor Okowa’s SMART agenda for its focus on agriculture as a means of creating employment opportunities for our teeming unemployed population. “The insecurity we have in the society is the result of persons not being in gainful employment, for no one in gainful employment will ever have time to indulge in crime,” he said.

Onyeobi, a foremost civil service technocrat has been involved in agriculture since he retired from the civil service and has been involved in the production oil palm and the production of palm oil called on the governments both at the Federal and state levels to be fair to all in the political and social strata of society without neglecting any segment in the matter of governance. For him, doing this will go a long way to assuage the feelings of indignation and injustice by people who feel unjustifiably neglected in the political scheme of things, and in governance.

He recalled the recent comment of the UN Secretary General Mr. Ban Ki-Moon who said that injustice was responsible for insurgency and other political unrests that have created insecurity being experienced across the globe. “Governments must be sensitive to matters of injustice and try to be fair to all,’ Chief Onyeobi counseled.

He advised Mrs. Ogbogu, a graduate of agricultural management from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State, to remember Asaba for good as she performs her duties as special adviser to the governor on agriculture. “You are first an Asaba woman before you are a Deltan,” he said.

Mrs. Ogbogu, an indigene of Asaba, in Oshimili South by birth but married in Ogwashi-uku in Aniocha South told Chief Onyeobi that she came visiting with him to seek her fatherly counsel and support in the assignment given to her as special adviser to the governor on agriculture. “The appointment was a pleasant shock to me. I received a call from the State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) that I should go and collect a letter from the office of the Secretary to Government of Delta state. And when I went, I was handed a letter of appointment as Special adviser to the governor. I have, therefore, deemed it fit to come to you as an elder to guide me and to ask for your support,” she said.

Chief onyeobi prayed for her success in her new role, and expressed the confidence that he had no doubt that she will do well in that office as she is fully qualified for the job.