My dear brother, Kalu, let me respond to your poser, with illustrations from my own direct experiences .
My own dad, before his exit from planet earth developed 6acres of cashew plantations in my home community Ihube Okigwe.
My mum was saddled with overseeing the estate , when he exited planet earth in 2015
In 2016, I decided to expand on this scheme. I rallied my friends , former bosses, employers to partner with me to set up SEFAPCOL..
sefapcol.com
We got 850 hectares of land in Ukwa Mkporo Ohafia with C of O
We deployed our bulldozers, machinery and men to start a pilot modern agro park that will house the following;
300 hectares of tenera palm plantations : 300 hectares of cashew orchard, ; 200 hectares of cavendish Banana Orchard and 50 hectares of the hybrid Mexican pineapple
The DG of the Abia PPP office, then, Austin Ufomba, [ one of the most cerebral and selfless Nigerian, I have encountered, and currently the CEO of Cameroon Breweries] and his right hand man, Chinedu Nwogu, supported us massively
We mobilized men and machinery to site to start work
We did the first 60 hectares clearing , planted our cavendish, did 5,000 units of the Mexican pineapple, developed hundreds of thousands of tenera sprouted nuts nursery orchards, and started setting up 20,000 liter per day pre fabricated integrated palm oil and palm kernel oil processing
plant.et
One ugly night, tens of domestic bandits , from edda in Afikpo swooped on the projects site with raw acids and guns to destroy the whole complex ... The Bulldozer was totally destroyed and the new plants totally destroyed ...
In my own home community, Ihube, we acquired hundreds of plots of land in a contiguous location, set up another 20,000 liter capacity integrated palm oil and palm kernel oil mill , that was commissioned, planted hectares of cashew plantations, and did a modern pig pen to raise pigs and process pork for the Chinese consumption in Nigeria [ the way they love it ]
The projects in my own community has been abandoned also because of insecurity.. The criminals masquerading as unknown gun men , ate up all the pigs in a period of 3 weeks , destroyed my factory trucks and machines, and vandalised my properties , unprovoked .
The 6 acres cashew plantation, my father set up, the ones I set up and the rest are all abandoned for years to insecurity. I cannot risk allowing my mum to stay in the community ...and her dislocation from the community she loved so much is destroying her .. but I cannot risk it ...
Even after Dr Alex Otti emerged as the Governor of Abia and has proactively taken steps to stem the rot . We went back to the Ukwa mkporo projects site to revive it again, but some dubious, myopic and errant elements in the community , bent on stopping any good things from their community have threatened my team and swore never to allow us have peaceful possession of our property, until the Abia state government settles them
See my brother , we can easily create massive agro wealth in the south east and Nigeria as a whole
Dr Micheal Okpara was so visionary about these things , that in 6 years, he established tens of thousands of massive palm plantations, cashew plantations, cocoa plantations, rubber plantations etc in the old Eastern region...Those projects are still there
We can easily replicate and improve on the things he did , by not just doing massive plantations , across the land, but setting up processing plants to add more value and wealth to us .
What we lack in Nigeria is empathetic , compassionate, focused, visionary, selfless and patriotic leadership , across most of the three tiers and arms of Governments in Nigeria...
I also don't blame the politicians alone ...I blame us ...our value system is so eroded
A vast majority of us vain, criminal minded, short termic in focus , greedy, wicked and will do worse than wike and Co, if given power. But, all boils down to leadership