President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has urged governors of the 36 states of the federation to meet targets on food securityto boost agricultural productivity and strengthen the economy.
Speaking during the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting on Thursday in Abuja, the president urged the governors to work together to meet the needs of citizens.
The president said he was willing to provide the needed support to ensure that Nigerians are relieved of the current hardship in the country.
The president also approved the immediate rollout of the National Construction and Household Support Programme to cover all geo-political zones in the country to create opportunities in the manufacturing and construction sectors and provide urgent economic relief for Nigerians.
Under the national construction programme, the Sokoto-Badagry Highway, which would traverse Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos states would be prioritised.
Other road infrastructure projects, such as the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, which is underway, and the Trans-Saharan Highway, which links Enugu, Abakaliki, Ogoja, Benue, Kogi, Nasarawa and Abuja would also prioritised.
The president also approved full counterpart financing for the Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Railway to traverse Rivers, Abia, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno states, as well as the Ibadan-Abuja segment of the Lagos-Kano Standard-Gauge Railway which would traverse Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Niger, Abuja, Kaduna and Kano states.
The Sokoto-Badagry road project is specially prioritized for its importance as some of the states it will traverse are strategic to the agricultural sustainability of the nation.
Within the Sokoto-Badagry Highway corridor, there are 216 agricultural communities, 58 large and medium dams spread across six states, seven Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones (SAPZs), 156 local government areas, 39 commercial cities and towns, and over 1 million hectares of arable land.
Similarly, the federal government approved a $1 billion agriculture mechanisation programme that will set up 1000 agro-sector service providers across the country with tractors.
Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, said this at the end of the National Economic Council (NEC) meeting presided over by Vice President Kashim Shettima at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
“We’ll have a minimum of 2000 tractors a year for the next five years and all other aggregation of agricultural commodities is going to be utilized at least nothing less than 600,000 youths to man these 1000 service centers,” he said.
He said the project was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) on Tuesday, stressing that the elaborate plan would be rolled out soon.
The minister said an arrangement with John Deere and Tata would provide 2000 tractors before the end of the year.
He said the Greener Imperative Project is a €950 million project that would soon be unveiled.
He said a deal is being anticipated with Belarus Tractors to supply 2000 tractors per year for the next five years, with 9000 implements and spare parts, among others.
He said that Saudi Arabia has expressed interest in 200,000 metric tons of red meat every year and one million tonnes of soya from Nigeria.
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