Bauchi State Government has gone into collaboration with the Central Bank of Nigeria over its Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme that seeks to provide 10,000 jobs to unemployed youth.
The collaboration followed a successful implementation of the massive rice farming scheme under the Anchor Borrowers programme.
This was made known in a press statement by the media aide to Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar of Bauchi State, Mr. Abubakar Al-Sadique.
He said the collaboration was made known when a team from the CBN led by the head of Agricultural Development Programme, Hajiya Amina Umar, visited the governor in Abuja.
Hajiya Amina Umar commended Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar for the “successful implementation of the Anchor Borrowers rice farming scheme in Bauchi State that shows the Buhari administration’s agricultural programme is on the right track.”
She said with the commitment to agriculture and the nation’s vast arable land Nigeria could feed not only the nation but the entire West African sub-region.
She called on all other governors to emulate the example of Governor Abubakar to make the agriculture project in the country a success.
Governor Abubakar, in his response, gave the assurance that his administration would collaborate with the CBN in the bid to bring meaningful development to the state.
According to him, that would be to ensure that “our unemployed youth who, in spite of threats, and against all odds stood by our party, the APC, in the 2015 elections.”
He stressed that despite the poor economic state of the nation, the APC government had performed beyond average.
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The governor said the Central Bank of Nigeria’s state governments’ engagement on Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme was in line with the campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress, which his administration pursued seriously since its inauguration in 2015.
Governor Abubakar had while addressing farmers after visiting farmlands with over 2500 hectres of rice in Gadau and Zaki local government areas in June this year, said his administration had provided N400 million to the Anchor Borrowers’ programme as a palliative measure for the farmers to continue with cultivation that would have been hampered by the delay in the release of funds to associations by commercial banks.
He told the farmers that his administration was compelled to take that action because of the failure of commercial banks to release the funds to the Anchor Borrowers Rice Farmers Associations in the state, but assured them that the problems encountered in accessing the funds from the CBN-supported scheme in the state were being addressed with the banks.
He explained that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had suspended the importation of rice and introduced the policy of its local production because the nation was endowed with everything it needed to produce enough to feed the nation and to “fully harness the agricultural endowments in the country.”
Governor Abubakar lauded the efforts and performance of the farmers and their commitment to the rice cultivation.
He pointed out that with the continuous governments’ support, Nigeria would soon produce enough rice to feed the nation and be an exporter of the product to neighbouring countries.
