EFFURUN (DELTA) - Mr. Anthony Shobo, the country’s first chemical engineer, has called on Nigerians to get more involved in agriculture to ensure greater economic balance.
Shobo, who graduated as a chemical engineer in 1957, told newsmen at Effurun in Delta that the country should shift emphasis from crude oil since agriculture was more profitable.
He said that agriculture, if properly harnessed, could fetch more revenue than the current earnings from crude oil and ensure greater infrastructural development and the utilisation of the abundant human resources the country was endowed with.
The chemical engineer said that before the discovery of crude oil, Nigeria was doing well economically with agriculture.
“When I was young, we relied on cocoa, groundnut and palm oil. These crops developed the country,’’
Shobo said, adding that the country should aim at getting 80 per cent of its revenue from agriculture.
He explained that from agricultural produce one could make glucose, pharmaceutical products as well as ethanol from cassava, which could be used as fuel.
Shobo cited Brazil which, he said, had been deeply involved in agriculture and was making profit.
“They convert their sugarcane to ethanol and the ethanol is sold just like crude oil in the market,’’ he said.
He called on the Federal Government to harness the agricultural potential of the country since the importance of agriculture in a national economy could not be over-emphasised.
Shobo, who was in Delta to attend the 38th Conference of the Nigerian Society of Chemical Engineers, however, described the importation of fuel by the country as a complicating situation.
He called on private investors to put their money in the country’s refineries in order to stop the importation of fuel, pointing out that government could not run the refineries or other businesses efficiently.
Shobo also advised the government to appoint technocrats into positions of authority so as to have sound advice that would move the country forward.
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