Ismail Adebayo in Birnin Kebbi
A Northern Nigeria Forum comprising 40 civil society groups on Wednesday in Birnin Kebbi, Kebbi State gave reasons why the All Progressives Congress, APC should give its presidential ticket to the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Dr. Godwin Emefiele.
The Director-General of the forum, Dr. Ibrahim Bature during a press briefing in Birnin Kebbi said they are calling on the hierarchy and stakeholders of the APC across the 36 states of the federation to give the presidential ticket of the party to Emefiele to succeed President Muhammadu Buhari because of his performance as CBN Governor and how he has transformed the economy of the country through the diversification policy.
He said "No single individual since the death of Sir Ahmadu Bello has turned the fortune of the northern farmers around like Emefiele had done". He added that though Emefiele is from Delta State he has done more for the north particularly Kebbi State than any known individual that is aspiring for the presidency.
He said "The Anchor Borrower Dry Season Rice Farming in the north and Rice Pyramid put together in Kebbi State was some of the success stories recorded by Dr. Emefiele. This was only witnessed in the days of sir Ahmadu Bello".
Speaking earlier, the Spokesperson of the forum, Aliyu Muhammed Sani said some of the agricultural initiatives of the CBN Governor include; Anchor Borrowers' Programme (ABP), Commercial Credit Scheme (CACS), National Food Security Programme (NFSP), Agribusiness /Small and Medium Enterprises Investment Scheme (AGSMEIS), Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI); Industry/Manufacturing, Real Sector Support Facility (RSSF), Textile Sector intervention Facility, CBN-BOI Industry Financing.
"This he did only with the utmost conviction and belief that the initiatives would lift thousands of small farmers out of poverty and generate millions of jobs for unemployed Nigerians.
" Statistics have some of these achievements documented.
The robust growth recorded by the agric sector in Q4’2020, helped the economy to record its first growth in three quarters, and also out of moving out of recession.
"Under the Anchors Borrowers’ Programme (ABP) the sum of $2 billion out of about $2.5 billion, earmarked for key initiatives in the Agricultural, manufacturing, and mining services sectors had been disbursed to over three million farmers cultivating over 4.7 million hectares of arable land in the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). In 2020 alone, N260 billion was disbursed to over 1.28 million farmers to support the cultivation of key staple items by farmers.
"Before the initiation of the Anchor borrowers’ program by Dr. Godwin Emefiele, there were only 15 standard rice mills in Nigeria, but as at today, we have over 50 standards and integrated rice mills mostly situated in Northern Nigeria creating jobs and reducing unemployment. There is Wacot and so many others.
"Here in Kebbi State, the first-ever Rice Pyramids in Kebbi State was unveiled, which is the collection of nearly 100,000 bags of 70kg rice paddies harvested from various fields of Kebbi state’s farmers who have benefited from the ABP.
Under the 2020 wet season, CBN-RIFAN partnership, financed 221,450 farmers for the cultivation of 221,450 hectares in 32 states with the Northwest zone having 85,261 farmers that cultivated 120,218 hectares representing 38.5 percent of the total number of farmers and 54.3 percent in a total number of hectares".
He stated that a special intervention fund for the wet season farming was provided for 2021 and of the sum N161.18 billion was allocated to 770,000 small-holder farmers cultivating seven commodities on 1.10 million hectares in the country.
"A total of 2,923, 937 farmers, cultivating 3,647,643 hectares across 21 commodities through 23 participating financial institutions had been financed in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
"The CBN under the stewardship of Dr. Godwin Emefiele paired with RIFAN targeting cultivation of 1million hectares of rice farms; which is over 350% increase from the 221,450 cultivated in 2020. Such partnerships were conceived to nursed an ambitious two cycles of production in the dry season, which will trigger a continuous drop in price of rice in the country", he said.
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