Heineken Lokpobiri, minister of
state for agriculture, says with the support of International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD), the federal government has made “many millionaires” from
agriculture.
In a statement on Wednesday,
George Oji, media aide of Lokpobiri, quoted the minister as making the claim
when Lisandro Martin, IFAD regional director for the West and Central African
region, paid him a visit on Tuesday.
The minister said whatever
decision Nigeria takes on agriculture is important because the country “feeds
the whole of West Africa”.
“What we are doing as a
government is to encourage young men, instead of looking for government job
where they will be paid peanuts, should go into agric business, not only to
plant but in the entire value chain. These are the things we can achieve with the
active support of IFAD,” he said.
“Federal government has not only
been able to increase food sufficiency and create jobs for the teaming youths,
but has as well made many millionaires from the farmers. So many millionaires
have been made from this partnership and we intend to create more and more
millionaires so that this issue of unemployment that is a fundamental problem
to Nigeria would be tackled.
“Whatever we do here essentially
feeds the whole of West Africa. The seeds that we produce here essentially
services the whole of West Africa, the grains that we produce here services the
whole of West Africa. Whatever happens here affects the whole of West Africa.
So, whatever support that you are giving to Nigeria is essentially the support
given to the whole of West Africa.”
Lokpobiri said the government
would be approaching IFAD “from time to time” to seek for more financial
support to enhance agricultural yield in the country.
“As a government, what we have
decided to do is to say we will give priority to our partnership, whatever that
is needed to be done on the part of the government, we would endeavour to do,”
he said.
“The value that is being added by
our partnership is so significant that from time to time, you will be getting
additional demands from us for more financing.
“I want to assure you that for
whatever support we get the story will be always a success story so that our
people will continue to get value for what this partnership is about.”
On his part, the IFAD director
said the organisation is working to provide more technical guidance to the
country.
“We are working with our team to
bring additional staff to Nigeria because this is clearly a country that is
almost like a continent where we realise that the capacity we have at the moment
is not sufficient,” Martin said.
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