Over 4,500 farmers in Kano State are to appear before a mobile court set up to recover loans from defaulters under the Anchor Borrowers’ Programme.
The farmers are part of the 5,000 who benefited from the loans which the Central Bank of Nigeria says less than 10 per cent of them had paid back.
In a bid to recover the loan, the state government has resorted to setting up of a mobile court to recover loans from defaulters of the CBN’s scheme.
Alhaji Faruk Rabi’u, the state chairman of All Farmers Association of Nigeria (AFAN) told our correspondent on Sunday that the state government was toeing the line as the last option to recover the loans.
He said the association had been directed to compile the list of all the defaulting farmers with a view to submitting same to the state government for necessary action.
“The state government will assist the association with the police, Judges and other staff because it served as a guarantor to the farmers.
“We want to change the attitude of some people who think that the loan is a national cake because they should have paid by April.
“It is unfortunate that less than 10 per cent of farmers who benefitted from the loan has so far paid the loan,” Rabi’u said.
He noted that the task force committee set up by the association to recover the loans had not been given the necessary support and cooperation by the defaulters.
NAN reports that the Federal Government is targeting the production of one million metric tons of paddy rice under the programme.
The programme is also meant to create economic linkages between the over 600,000 smallholder farmers and reputable large-scale processors, to raise agricultural output and improve capacity utilisation of integrated mills.
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NAN also reports that in January, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje urged the over 5,000 beneficiaries of the loan to pay up.
He said that the loan was not free and all the beneficiaries must pay back to enable others benefit.
The governor reminded them that “an individual farmer or group may repay the loan in cash or with bags of rice.”
Ganduje said the anchor borrower programme had achieved its objective in the state, as it had helped to shoot up rice production by 96 per cent in 2016 when compared to the 2015 output.
According to him, wheat production also recorded 84 per cent increase during the period.
Earlier, a representative of the CBN, AbdulKadir Ahmad, said N960 million was allocated to Kano farmers and each benefitted N367,000.
