By Ephraim Oseji & IKENNA ASOMBA

Bishop Charles Ighele is the President, Sharon University of Agriculture and Rural Development,  in the pipeline by the Happy Family African Foundation (HFAF).

Ighele, who just clocked 60, in this interview, speaks of the plans to establish the first ‘real’ university of  agriculture that will drive development in the rural areas, thus formulating the catchword from

oil to soil.

You just clocked 60 years, and you are coming up with a university of agriculture and rural development. What is your driving force?

Yes, what we are coming up with is Sharon University of Agricultural and Rural Development, established by the Happy Family African Foundation, which I’m the President. It is part of our efforts to lift up the dignity of the African family. Our catchword is from oil to soil. We have put our strategies in place to make this university not like the conventional universities. The university will drive development in the rural areas, whether in the east, west, north or south. It’s about the African which will drive development. At this point we are going to show practically that in two or three years,

somebody can become a millionaire through farming. We have travelled and seen it, and we have put our arts together. We are are not going to admit too many students, and we have put our strategies in place on how their fees is going to be paid. When people know that you can be a millionaire in two or three years after studying agriculture in the university, they will flock to the sector. Nigeria will become a nation that will be exporting foods, both primary and processed.

Stage of establishment

The Federal Government regulation is our major constraint. Again, we need over 250 acres of land to meet FG’s requirement. Now, we have been able to purchase about 120 acres of land, almost half of that. The land is some 20 minutes drive from the Redeemed Camp. We have laid the foundation stone, so we are still putting things in place to kick-off. The NUC requirement is not a tea-party, but this is what we are determined to do. I believe that if anybody is a servant of God, we should see how the whole thing comes out of the four walls of the church.

Do you have any partnership with local or international organizations?

We depend on support from the public to establish this university. In terms of technical support, we are in partnership with one of the best international institutions in Agriculture in the world. The UN

Secretary Banki Moo, even recently went to inspect the institution. Myself and my wife have visited the institution, sometime ago. We went there again with some of our Pastors, about 16 of us. More recently, we went there with four Senior Pastors to finalize the technical aspect of the partnership. Everything has been agreed upon and that is hat gives us edge over any institution of agriculture already in existence in the country today.

Unique feature

Bishop Charles Ighele

Our unique feature is that we are poised to produce a crop of farmers that will not only employ themselves, but will also employ other people, thus, solving the problem of unemployment in the country. Apart from that, we are poised to produce the new elites from the rural communities. People should be able to know that you can be in the village and still make it. Apart from that, we are going fully into Agro-ecology, this is what makes the university unique. In the Nigerian market today, we have a lot artificial foods, such as biscuits, ice-cream among others. All these are junk foods, that’s why

you see people having junk body systems, junk bones and the rest. Again, when you look at the tomatoes gotten from the north, and the vegetables gotten from the south, they are fertilizer-assisted. They are fertilizer-grown. These are all products of chemical farming whose products don’t withstand the test of time. For instance, if you get a vegetable that is fertilizer-assisted and the one that is not, the

former withers-away before morning. This gives us a picture of how healthy are the foods we are eating today.

So, what we are doing now is agro-ecology, we are creating a natural environment where these farm products would have grown naturally, and not assisted by fertilizer. These are the kind of farmers we are going to produce, who will produce healthy foods that will make the African man healthy. These are the kind of people we want to release, this is our driving-force. It irritates us to see that our people are eating junk foods today.

Why do you want to target students from rural communities?

We want to get children from rural communities who have that spirit of agriculture because they have been farming with their parents from when they were young. So, we are simply targeting the rural areas of Africa to get these highly intelligent children, who are already farming with their parents, and make them apply to our university. When, they apply, they are are going to bring to fore what they have

been doing in the village with nothing to show for. While, they are in the village, their parents can’t even raise their tuition fees in schools from their farming. But here, we are going to prove to them

that they can be millionaires through agriculture when they finish from our school. We are going to show them what use they can be for their country through agriculture. So, it’s catch them young into

agriculture.

How do you expect these kids from rural communities to raise the finance to come to your school, or is it a non-profit institution?

Their parents would not have been able to pay their tuition fees. That’s is why we are now helping these kids from poor background, who would have amounted to nothing by making them to be a new set of

elites. How do we do this, we are going to get people who will pay their fees through scholarship grants. So, we are not going to be admitting thousands of students to achieve this. However, we have our own plans to be self-sufficient for over 15-20 years time.

Curriculum

We are going to introduce agro-ecology in our curriculum, a system of farming where we are going to get our people to learn it, do it and then spread it to the whole country, so that Nigeria can eat better

foods. The centre of our curriculum is something quite practical, producing the real practical farmer, doing food processing, animal husbandry among others. We are going to make our money when what we have grown are processed into secondary products. So, we are going to lay emphasis not only on farming, but on the food industry. All these things are practical and feasible in this country. Look at the cashew business in Nigeria, it’s worth about N40 billion every year. There is money in this country.