The Kwara State Governor, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmed, has urged the Federal Government to urgently formulate special financial policy that supports the development of agribusiness-driven prosperity in the country.
The governor stated this in his contribution at an Aid and Development Roundtable in Washington, DC, United States of America on Wednesday.
Ahmed emphasised that an agribusiness economy is being constrained largely by an unfavourable financial policy that does not take cognisance of gestation periods of agricultural produce.
Ahmed, who called on Northern governors to collaborate with the Federal Government to come up with the right policy to drive agriculture in the country, urged the United States Agency for International Development and other international aid agencies to quickly intervene in the areas of irrigation, agriculture inputs and manpower development.
According to Ahmed: “If adequately harnessed, an agribusiness driven economy, especially in the North, can generate more than 25 million jobs within the next five years.
“Apart from reviving the comatose industries in the North, transforming the lives of rural dwellers, reducing youth restiveness, an agro-based economy has the inherent potential to improve the country’s foreign earnings for the much needed infrastructure development.”
Justifying the urgency to massively invest in the North, the governor added: “Today, the North has the highest proportion of Nigerians living in poverty, the highest number of school age girls not attending school and the largest component of Nigeria’s unemployed youth.”
As at 2012, Governor Ahmed continued, the average poverty rate of the states in the North West geopolitical zone remained the highest at 71.4 per cent followed by North East, 69.1 per cent, and North Central, 60.7 per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
He added: “The North also lags behind in gender development and empowerment.
“Clearly, the more economic growth Nigeria and indeed the North achieve, the more we democratise poverty and restrict inclusive prosperity.
“Such inequality and despair provide fertile soil for insecurity and the conflicts that continue to plague the North.
“Indeed, the North’s agricultural resources can provide an antidote to the socio-economic stagnation and crises that have brought the region to its knees.
“We must explore and promote investment along key agriculture values to reclaim the agro-allied prosperity this region once knew.”
The Executive Vice President of OPIC, the US Government’s Development Finance Institution, Mimi Alemayehou, said the US was prepared to massively invest in Agriculture, Education and Health in Nigeria in the next few months.
Alemayehou urged governments to be more transparent and carry the rural populace along in development strategies.
Other participants in the Aid and Development Roundtable included representatives of the Export-Import Bank and the USAID.
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