In a field one summer day, a grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart’s desire, an ant passed bearing along with great effort an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

“Why not come and chat with me” asked the grasshopper, adding ‘instead of toiling and moiling away?’ “I am helping to lay up food for the winter,” said the ant, adding “I recommend you do the same.”

“Why bother about winter?” asked the grasshopper, adding “we have got plenty of food at present.”

But the ants went on its way and continue its toiling. When winter came, the grasshopper found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing every day, corn and grain from the lot they had collected in the summer. Then the grasshopper knew what the ant was talking about.

MORAL: work hard today and you can reap the benefit tomorrow…

We have abundant, we once reach the peak but failed to save for the heyday, there was a time when black gold was $180 per barrel now it goes for meager $43 per barrel. From the age of 2, diversification was all i heard from the government , now i am old enough to be a grandpa but yet to see any serious commitment from successive governments.

The giant of African, as we always pride our-self fill with brains but we have always got it wrong in terms of leaders, for quite some time now I have followed the Fulani herdsmen scenario where one of my darling state in north central (Benue state) was invaded.

Initially we heard that the federal government was trying to resolve the problem by importing grasses from Brazil. I laughed about such idea why must we import everything? go to my village we have many hectares of land for grazing but since we don’t know how to reserve our grasses we burn them up incessantly, so rather than importing from brazil I think my village can produce enough for all the cattle in Nigeria, thank God such idea was shelved, we should look inward first before thinking outside the box

Then the idea of creating a cattle ranch for them set in, a brilliant idea, at least it will curtail the movement of the Fulanis and their cattle all in the name of grazing. Cattle ranch a standard practice in countries like India, Malaysia and even Thailand there are numerous advantages for such practice.

Take for instance Kogi state, the government creates a ranch of like a hectare of land for all the herdsmen in the state. Good and fine, how will it now improve the state? Firstly, it will help the state to check mate the activity of the herdsmen that is issues related to clashes and vandalisation of property by the herdsmen will be check mated. Also we all knowing the byproduct of a cow i.e. the milk, hides and skin, faeces which is part of the composition of NPK fertilizer and the meat, now the state government or even the local government can commercialize all these by products, it is not rocket science to do is just mechanizing the process of getting it done. Create a milk factory to extract the milk, then the state government bear the cost of processing it and selling it, at the long run it improve the internally generate revenue for the state. The hides and skins can be processed properly and well rapped it might be part of what the state will start importing to other state. The meat too can be package well and ensure a decent abattoir is created at the ranch and all meat coming out of there is certified by a veterinary doctor. To achieve food sufficiency in Nigeria is not the responsibility of one state to feed all or one region to feed all, it is the responsibility of each state to feed is citizenry first.

During the just concluded 2015 general elections the citizenry heard an earful about change. Politicians promised to change the way things are in the country. Specifically, they promised to stop bribery and corruption, provide good roads, build hospitals, create jobs, etc.

We have heard all these things in the past, so much that we now have genuine reasons to doubt all these promises. The key question remains, can these ‘new’ people be trusted to make good their promises? One year after and we have not seen any difference.

If no human beings were living in the territory called Nigeria, what then is the need for change? In all honesty, we the citizens cannot just sit down, do things and expect the president to perform magic and change everything in Nigeria like a fairy tale. That brings to mind a statement to United States president Barrack Obama, who once said: “change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we have been waiting for; we are the change that we seek”.

Nigeria had all the opportunities to ward off, if not abort, ab-initio, the present predicament but she dilly-dallied, looking the other way. In many respects it could be said that we created the environment within which the evil of depleted reserve, Fulani herdsmen saga, boko haram, dwindle oil price and other similar tendencies germinated either in the ignorance that it will serve some selfish political purposes or further some sectarian objectives that are tied to selfish politicking; now the monster has eaten up its creator and everyone is on the run.

Thank you