Nigeria Already Made Very Serious Mistakes – Audu Ogbeh

Audu Ogbeh, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, has advised policy makers to be watchful of adopting international policies and ideas in the country.

“We should thank God that we are still together after 57 years, we should thank God that he has blessed this country with a whole lot of things.

“We should also look back and realise that we made very serious mistakes.

“We should also recognise that when people from outside give us advise whether on political, economic or religious issues, we need to take what they give us and digest them to meet our local conditions and circumstances.

“Sometimes, I think that there is far too much photocopy in intellectualism; IMF said this, World Bank said that.

“It is not everything they say that works. We are different people, we are Africans, and we will never be Europeans no matter how hard we try.

“They may have done certain things and succeeded with them, we don’t have to do it their way.

“The Indians and Chinese have proved very well, they remain themselves; they remain very indigenous, they copy the best and also adapted it for the best conditions of their people.

“The SAP was a terrible mistake; I will never stop saying so. The disaster is that our youths can’t find jobs. Those are the consequences of accepting advice without digesting them properly,’’ he said.