Fadama: FCTA restates commitment to empower women, youths

The Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory, Olajumoke Akinjide, has restated the administration’s commitment to empower women and youths through Fadama III projects.
Akinjide spoke when she visited the FCT Fadama III project in Kwali Area Council.
She said that her visit was part of a "deliberate strategy" by the administration to monitor activities and track performance, to ensure delivery of quality services.
The minister said the administration would continue to accord priority attention to issues of women and youths as a panacea to the problems of poverty and unemployment which was more prevalent among the group.
She said: "It is indeed our desire to ensure that our teeming rural poor are empowered in order to arrest the problem of rural urban migration."
Akinjide said that agriculture was an essential platform to create wealth in the country, adding: "Agriculture is the future of this country, that is what we started with and that is what we are going back to."
She commended women for their commitment to the Fadama project.
Earlier, the Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat, Ovaldi Madayi, said that the project had achieved significant success since its inception in June 2009.
Madayi said the project had disbursed about N425.38 million to Fadama Community Associations and Fadama User Groups to implement their chosen sub-projects.
According to her, 1,072 Fadama User Groups have been formed as cooperative entities with total membership strength of 15,718 individuals.
This, she said, had facilitated the preparation of 85 local development plans and implemented 516 sub-projects across the FCT.
Madayi said that under the input support component, 314 groups had accessed assorted agricultural inputs such as seeds, fingerlings, day-old chicks, fertilisers and agro chemicals.
She further said that more than 75 per cent of the project was channelled to support women and youth, adding that about 5,000 direct jobs were also created through the project.