Former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Michael Aondoakaa, has said that no Nigerian president, dead or living, has done more than President Goodluck Jonathan, especially in agriculture and commerce.
He added that Jonathan had not only continued with and sustained the policies and programmes of his predecessor, the late president Umaru Yar’ Adua, but also surpassed him.
The former justice minister who served in the President Yar’ Adua administration made the remark during an exclusive interview with New Telegraph, in Abuja.
He said that going into farming was not strange to him, adding he was only following his father’s footsteps. “Of course, my father had been a farmer even though he was a traditional ruler; his main income came from farming.
That has been the reason I felt that going into agriculture was one factor,” he said. “The present government of President Jonathan has taken care of these. It is trying to put this 60 percent farming for subsistence into wealth creation.
Wealth creation entails that there should be higher yield per hectre. “I don’t think any president has done more than President Jonathan, including the late President Yar’ Adua. No president has done agriculture more than President Jonathan.
I am being realistic. Yes, the President Yar’ Adua started agriculture, created awareness in agriculture, but the person that really brought agriculture to the level and expanded it is President Jonathan, and no other person has done that.”
According to the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, who intends to run for the Benue State governorship election on the platform of the PDP, those responsible for the importation of foreign rice into the country were local businessmen who lacked the spirit of patriotism required to protect the country’s economy.
“My dream is to make Benue State Agriculture Free Trade Zone, make the people trade basically in agriculture, wake up Benue and make it the hub of agricultural training in Nigeria. Benue State used to be the food basket of the nation in the 60s and early 70s.”
Source: New Telegraph
