Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan introduced the Delta Beyond Oil initiative, in a bid to diversify the economy of the oil-rich state and guarantee further development.
A university don in the Faculty of Agriculture, Delta State University, Abraka, Dr. Theophilus Opkidi, has however tasked the next government that takes over from Uduaghan to make sure that it sustained the initiative.
Opkidi, who is also the Managing Director of DELSU Investment Limited, an independent arm of the university responsible for private investments, said that with the dwindling international price of crude oil, the state and the country could no longer rely on crude oil for survival, except through such an initiative as the Delta Beyond Oil.
“It is for the reason of self sustenance that my university asked me to set up the DELSU Investment Ltd. We started with just N5 million but today that arm is worth N400 million. I am sure the state governor saw the growth there and that must have made it possible for him to direct me to revamp the earlier moribund Songhai Delta Farm, which is at Ovwore axis of Amukpe-Sapele,” he said.
