By Raphael Ekpang
The Senate Committee Chairman on Agriculture, Colleges and Institutions, Adeniyi Adegbonmire has urged management of. federal colleges and Institutions to look beyond government funding for its sustainability.
The Senator representing Ondo Central Senatorial District at the Red Chamber gave the charges on Thursday in Abuja while during his Committee interface with the leadership of various colleges institutions , adding that the government alone can’t tackle the issue of food security in Nigeria considering the economic challenges the nation is passing through.
He noted that the economic challenges of the country at the moment warrant every Institutions and colleges to look inwards for it’s sustenance, saying Nigeria Institutions are blessed with a lot of potentials that need to be harnessed if adequate framework and procedures are introduced into the system.
According to him, “There are a lot of potentials in colleges/Institutions we have interacted with in the last three days and what it shows to me is that there is future in our institutions but what has been lacking is the ability of government to fund these institutions.
“However, it is clear to me that giving the present economic reality, it will be difficult for government to fund all their activities, hence, my advice to some of them who have the capacity to generate revenue is to look at ways of partnering with private sector to see to that gap in funding, and my idea is that if they can partner private sector some of them can be viable.
“Food security is the ability to feed your populace. Security you are now talking about such as Banditry , Boko-Haram are been tackled. Remember that this present administration at each given time, the President has said it is important to him that everywhere is secured ,” he said.
He added that food security is a national priority therefore, to ensure national security, the current administration is doing everything possible to eliminate security challenges that face agricultural produce. Notwithstanding, he said the All Progressives Congress (APC) led administration has the capacity through its various institutions to curb all the social vices in Nigeria.
