Oil will soon become history in Nigeria – Badaru

Jigawa state Governor, Alhaji Muhammadu Badaru has said that with the development of renewable energy, oil will soon become history in Nigeria because the only alternative to sustainable prosperity of Nigeria is agriculture.
Addressing the “Validation Workshop on Capacity Gaps for Implementing Holistic Empowerment for Livelihood Programme (HELP),” Wednesday in Kaduna, Badaru said his administration has created lots of job on rice value chains and t is doing same in tomatoes and groundnut value chains.
He said: “Jigawa state can’t be industrialised because all the industries are in Kano.
We cannot be centre of commerce because Kano is already a centre of commerce.
But we are not relying on oil revenue because oil wells will soon be history if it runs dry, and for us to survive as a state, we have to work on competiveness.
We have to develop our people, our business, and our agriculture to keep the state abreast.
So, agriculture is our lifeline.
“Oil will soon become history with the development of renewable energy.
So, we have no alternative to agriculture.
Prosperity of our state and country depends on agriculture.
In Jigawa, we have been able to produce large number of goats after distributing 3 goats each to over 600 women.
Now we have large number of goats which in the next few months or years we will be able to export with the necessary requirements to Kuwait.
“For you to know how serious we take agriculture in Jigawa, we discuss it every Monday at council meeting.
We have trained over 145,000 youths across the state on rice planting implement, to plant and transplant.
We also trained women on rice parboiling.
So, we have developed a lot of jobs on rice value chains.
We are doing same in tomatoes, groundnut sectors.
Our being here is to discuss agriculture because it is a duty we must do for our people.” The Governor said in order not to be industrially backward, his state has empowered women with breeding of goats in the rural areas.
He said over 600 male and female goats were distributed, believing that within few years, goat production would have been sizeable enough for export to Kuwait and other Arab countries The governor noted that about 85 per cent of the women have so far abided by returning three goats each to the government as interest on the goats earlier distributed to them.
“As soon as we have enough of these goats we will export them to Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, just to mention a few.” He also said Dangote rice farming has a robust out-grower scheme covering a piloted area of 8’000 hectares, which he said involve 5,000 farmers, launched in Hago village of Kafin-Hausa local government area of the state.
The convener of Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), Dr.
Usman Bugaje lamented that Nigeria has the most fertile land in Africa but still imports food.
He said the country’s population is estimated to be 300 million in the next 12 years, noting that if practical steps are not taken to address issues of food security, the country will not be able to feed its population.
He urged the workshop to identify the gaps that are making it difficult for Nigeria to be selfsufficient in food.
In his remarks, the Executive Director of Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), Dr.
Yemi Akinbamijo said the twoday workshop must come out with roadmap for the development of agricultural value chain in Africa.