The Hadejia Jama’are River Basin Development Authority, Kano has said it plans to establish a modern tissue Culture laboratory in Nigeria.
The Managing Director, Mr. Ma’amun Dau Aliyu, stated this Wednesday in Abuja while addressing delegates during the River Basin’s two-day retreat.
The retreat has as its theme: “Re-positioning HJRBDA for Effective Service Delivery.”
He said the establishment of the laboratory is part of the programmes lined up by the Basin in the near future.
Aliyu said with the rapid changes and developments in the Nigerian emerging economy and indeed, the global food insecurity due to COVID-19 pandemic and other relevant issues, it has become more compelling for the country to begin to look inwards to address some of its challenges.
He said the retreat affords the Basin the opportunity for the participants to discuss and brain storm on the emerging challenges arising from the dynamic operating environment.
Aliyu said since his appointment as managing director, he has constructed water supply scheme’s, established and managed hydro-metrological stations, flood and erosion control, development of well based small scale irrigation schemes, graduate and youths empowerment scheme.
He said he has further integrated water resource management, establishment of improved seeds multiplication and processing center, orchard development in different locations, upgrade and expand Challawa Spring Water and Bolting Plant, real time visual monitoring system for canals in irrigation fields of the Authority among other things.
According to him, “The retreat provide a forum for a cross section of the staff to collectively review the progress being made in the implementation of mandates and provide the right environment for brainstorming and reaching a common understanding of the authority’s emerging challenges/strategic issues and initiatives for dealing with them,” he said.
He added that some of the challenges confronting the Authority includes inconsistent government politicizes, resulting in frequent changes of mandate and responsibilities of the Authority, inadequate manpower as a result of non replacement of existing staff, deterioration of dams and irrigation infrastructure, lack of functional machinery for infrastructural maintenance.