The Swiss Envoy to Nigeria, Chad and Niger Republic, Mr. Hans Rudolf Hodel, has said that a synergy between Nigeria and Switzerland to help solve Nigeria’s insecurity problem through agriculture has reached its peak.

Speaking with reporters at the end of a two-week capacity building workshop in agricultural education in Ilorin at the weekend, the ambassador, however, said the pendulum of the collaboration shifted towards Nigeria, noting that insecurity problem could only be solved by Nigerian authorities, as Switzerland could only contribute to it.

Besides, while underlining the imperative of sovereignty of the two nations in agreement, Hodel at the Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI) venue of the event cautioned against sensationalism in media coverage of Nigeria’s affairs citing world dependence on media reports.

Reporter: “By your own assessment is Nigeria at present a safe country to live in?”

Ambassador: “You are the ones who should know better. I got to Nigeria some eight months ago but we rely heavily on what you tell us about your country.”

For Hodel, “we can help the authority to create job, encourage education, improve on social fields so that people will be happy and have less tendency towards terrorism and violence”.

Hodel said Nigeria should intensify efforts at improving agriculture and agro-industrial production, adding that such concentration of resources would be a catalyst to prosperity and poverty alleviation.

“Nigeria need not pay less emphasis on oil, but should improve agriculture. And not only agriculture, but also industrial production so that everyone can be economically active to boost nation’s trade and commerce, buying and selling with people producing. Industrial production would make people to import less and export to other countries of the world like Asia, Europe, Americas and so on.”

Besides, he opined that government should encourage commercial agriculture, noting, “You have to feed the people first. What’s the essence of agriculture if you produce for export and the people are hungry? This is not a good example, but Nigeria is on good track of agric production for home consumption and export”.

Also speaking, the Permanent Secretary, ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mrs. Ibukun Odusote, said the present administration is committed to diversifying the nation’s economy away from oil, with greater emphasis on non-oil sectors, adding that efforts are to be largely channelled on investment driven agricultural growth strategy.

The permanent secretary, who said less than 40 per cent of the available arable land is cultivated in the country, lamented that Nigeria has been a net importer of food spending over $10 billion a year for importation of wheat, rice, sugar and fish alone, whereas Nigeria should be a power house of food production.

At the event the Executive Director of the ARMTI, Samuel Afolayan said the institute, the one of its kind in Africa sub region, is being under utilised by Nigerians, urging therefore the governments (federal, states and local councils) to send more of their workers to the institute for more knowledge on skill acquisition.