Unknown to Abians, apart from being a retired Chief of Army Staff, COAS and now a potential politician, Gen. Azubuike Onyeabor Ihejirika is also a farmer and practices animal husbandry.
Opposite his house at his country home, Ovim in Isuikwuato LGA of Abia State, the retired but not tired warrior has a beautiful animal farm that will soon compete with national standard and present a research grown for agriculturual products.
Conducting The Renaissance News, TRN team round the animal farm, the first thing that will greet you is his Green Pepper farm cultivated under a Green House mode. The pepper is so green that one may be tempted to try to eat it raw.
The next is a pilot scheme for bush fowl (ogazi in Igbo) that grace the farm. Though not caged, but provided with pens, the birds no longer deem it fit to fly away, instead attracts others from the bush.
According to Gen. Ihejirika, “when fully matured, people will have them as bush meat as well as chicken meat.
The modern farmer, Ihejirika disclosed that he has acquired incubators to hatch their eggs ‘as if you allow them to hatch their eggs, they will not hatch much”.
He explained other benefits of breeding the bird to include acting as a security by “making noise at night and alerting us when someone enters the compound”.
Numbering over 300, the retired General said he started breeding them with only 50 birds.
In addition to this, he also breeds hundreds of local fowls.
Other animals include the porcupine, males and females provided with improved habitat as the animal is a nocturnal one.
The farm also has ostriches which danced for the press when approached, as well as incubator for hatching their eggs.
Others include goats, sheep, crocodile, fish pond, snail farm, rabbit farm, and geese.
The excited retired general and now farmer told TRN, “I have passion for animal husbandry, not minding the long stay in the Army”.
He said in the last five years, he had expected the youths of Abia State to go back to agriculture and has given out more than 52, 000 yam seedlings in 2019 and in 2020, also gave out 64,000 yam seedlings to Isuikwuato rural farmers to encourage them.
Observing that not much was planted in 2020, “I decided to clear the farm for them and make mounds for them and paid for the labour for the youths to plant”, he said.
Fielding questions from TRN, the farmer General said in 2019, the harvest by the Amaba women of Isuikwuato “was huge” adding that by the next season (2021), “I decided to give it a direct touch”.
He expressed his desire to see a stage “where government will take a step towards encouraging the present farmers and the modification of farming from the system abandoned centuries ago, stating “farming in the south east needs improvement”.
