PCNI promises to make North East Nigeria’s food basket

Alhaji Tijjani Tumsah, Vice Chairman, Presidential Committee on North East Initiative, says the committee will focus on improving agricultural activities in the region to make it Nigeria’s food basket.
Tumsah made this known on Friday in Abuja while briefing the newsmen on the committee’s activities in 2017 and plans for 2018.
He said: “Our mandate was to coordinate all interventions going on in the North East and as it moves to the recovery phase, plans are already underway to improve agriculture production.
‘‘In 2018, we are expecting to see more productivity especially in most of the recovered areas in Borno.
“The North East is 22 per cent of the size of Nigeria and we intend to make it a food basket of the nation.
“There will be better agric inputs, better seeds, fertilizers and better animal production both in meat and milk.
“We have had partnership meetings with commissioners of agriculture in various states in the North East and we are very hopeful that the North East will bounce back better in agriculture.
“We have reached advanced stages of discussion with the Seed Council and the Bank of Industry and they have all been using their facilities to ensure we partner for better success.”
Tumsah said that early recovery and rehabilitation of the North East was going on side by side as homes and public institutions were being rebuilt gradually.
He said the project would also help in increasing local governance.
Recounting the success of the committee in 2017, Tumsah said that approximately 2,000 students from 43 unity schools benefitted from the PCNI’s Safe School Initiative programme.
He said: “For the SSI programmes, we pay their school fees and other commitments including transport money, pocket money and their needs when they are in schools.
“The school fees are paid directly to the school; we pay their examination fees while the transport fees are paid to the state.
“We visit them every term and do a lot of monitoring and evaluation.”
Tumsah disclosed that the Government Secondary School, Chibok had been reconstructed and was redesigned to meet international standards.
He said that although there were still securities challenges around the area, a lot of efforts were being put in place to ensure that the school resumed as soon as possible.
He said that in 2017, the monthly coordination meetings that brought together development partners provided a platform for the committee to identify where there were gaps and how to address them.
He said the dashboard was also designed and launched in conjunction with the World Bank and the PCNI.
Tumsah said the dashboard was used to coordinate the activities of all intervening agencies and to make its activities more transparent.
He reiterated the committee’s commitments of accountability and effort at stabilising the situation at the North East.