By Marie-Therese Nanlong

A gubernatorial aspirant in Plateau State, Jerry Gushop has lamented the rising cases of insecurity being heightened by the high rates of unemployment, saying anybody seeking to govern the State must have credible platforms to engage the youths and take their minds off crimes.

Gushop who is aspiring to fly the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP flag in the 2023 election reiterated that with a secured environment, investments in education, agriculture, and the economy will create a credible platform for youth empowerment.

Speaking with some journalists in Jos, the technocrat said, “It is worrisome to see people go and kidnap and demand money; that is what the youths are doing now and it is not acceptable. I am an agriculturalist and finance value chain, consultant. I know in-depth what is supposed to be done in terms of agriculture on the Plateau.

“Once we have been able to take care of the issue of security, the next issue will be human development. We need to be investors through PPP in areas of healthcare, education, then, aggressive agriculture and rural development. On the Plateau, we have what it takes to drive revenue from agriculture, we can get a lot of revenue from Tourism, mineral resources. Plateau will be one of the best revenue generators in Nigeria if we come on Board.”

In specific terms, he noted, “Fertilizer has always been the major challenges for farmers, what we intend to do is to establish fertilizer blending companies in three geopolitical zones of Plateau State to take care of fertilizer.

“Then the issue of seed. Most farmers are planting grains not seeds, with the seed you will be able to get a high yield. We will encourage mechanization, former Governor, Jonah David Jang brought ASTC, we want to build on that ASTC. We want to make sure that tractors are deployed to all localities for them to work with.”

He also frowned at post-harvest losses, stressing, “We want to ensure we build warehouses in designated areas so that our farmers can go and put farm produces so that when the prices appreciate they will now sell them. Most of our farmers don’t do dry season farming, we need to encourage farming all year round of the farming so that it will bring business.

“Because of that we will establish mini dams and all these our mining ponds, we want to convert some to fish ponds and some to mini ponds for farmers to be using regularly. We will develop rural roads for farmers to transport what they produced to the markets.”

The aspirant added that Plateau would borrow a leaf from Zimbabwe in greenhouse farming because “we have fresh vegetables on the Plateau. We would encourage greenhouse farming for farmers. When our agriculture is growing the industries will function well.”