Post-Retirement Engagement Plan Among Oil Company Workers in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria: Is there Interest in Agricultural Investment?
Workers, including oil company workers are advised to plan for their exit from their employing firms or establishments to avoid been driven below poverty line after retirement. There is also advocacy for people to invest in agriculture by state and federal governments. This study therefore examined the level of interest in agricultural investment among oil company workers in the Niger Delta Region of Nigeria, in their post-retirement engagement plans. From among the workers in the oil companies operating in the study area, 232 respondents were selected and data were elicited from them with the use of questionnaire. The data were treated with the application of descriptive statistics and Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation (PPMC) analysis. The level of interest in agricultural investment among the oil company workers is low (31.03%) just as most of them had 11-15 years left to be in service and most (68.53%) of them planned to remain in urban settlements after retirement. Those who planned to engage in farming gave reasons such as interest, ready market, contacts with farmers and extension agents, state of world oil market and government advocacy as the propelling factors. Their level of preparedness was influenced inversely by the number of years they had left to be in service (r = 0.886). It is recommended that extension agencies should organize training programmes for them at intervals to enhance their entrepreneurial and technical skills in agriculture. This set of people should be made opinion leaders on getting back to their villages. Other workers who had not indicated interest in agricultural investment after retirement should be persuaded to develop interest in agriculture.
