President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Thursday gave all the state governors 7 days to come up with concrete feedback on their plans to revive food production in their respective states.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu gave the directive at the 142nd National Economic Council meeting attended by state governors and some deputies at the State House, Abuja.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu also announced a National Construction and Household Support Programme which will see 100,000 families in each state getting ₦50,000 federal government grant for three months, ₦155,000,000,000 to be disbursed for assorted foods, ₦540,000,000,000 for household grants even as 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory will get ₦10,000,000,000 allocations each for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) buses.
The ₦50,000 federal government grant planned for 3,700,000 households across the 36 states and the FCT, the ₦10,000,000,000 allocation each for CNG buses in the 36 states and the FCT, as well as the ₦155,000,000,000 spending on assorted foods, are estimated to cost over ₦1,000,000,000,000.
While emphasising the urgency of boosting food production in the country, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu urged state governors to work together to meet the needs of Nigerians, stating his willingness to provide the needed support to ensure that Nigerians are relieved of hardship.
“We must deliver on our targets at all levels. Please report back following your consultations and submit it to my office within seven days.
“How much support do you need from me and in what form? I am prepared to provide it. But we must achieve the result.
“There is nothing we are doing that is more important than producing high-quality food for our people to consume, buy, and sell. We create jobs in the production of it. And that is before we generate wealth by exporting the excess. It is not beyond us to achieve this for Nigerians,” President Bola Ahmed Tinubu said.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's comments followed multiple economic challenges faced by the country. High inflation driven by the removal of fuel subsidies and exchange rate depreciation reached 27% year-on-year in October 2023.
This price surge, coupled with high food insecurity has increased the cost-of-living crisis, leaving Nigerians struggling to afford necessities.
Despite adopting significant policy reforms like fuel subsidy removal and exchange rate unification, the challenges of poverty, stalled per-capita growth, and a weak business environment persist and are compounded by external pressures such as global food price surges and geopolitical uncertainties.
At Thursday’s National Economic Council (NEC) meeting, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu announced new plans to boost agricultural productivity, strengthen the economy by creating opportunities in the real sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, and construction, and provide urgent economic relief for Nigerians.
This includes the immediate rollout of the National Construction and Household Support Programme to cover all geo-political zones in Nigeria.
“Under the programme, the Sokoto-Badagry Highway, which will traverse Sokoto, Kebbi, Niger, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, and Lagos, is prioritised,” according to a statement signed by the President’s Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Ajuri Ngelale.
The statement is titled, ‘President Tinubu urges governors to meet target on food security; approves immediate rollout of national construction and household support programme.’
The national construction and household support programme also prioritises 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.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu also approved full counterpart financing for Port Harcourt-Maiduguri Railway; to traverse Rivers, Abia, Enugu, Benue, Nasarawa, Plateau, Bauchi, Gombe, Yobe and Borno, as well as for the Ibadan-Abuja segment of the Lagos-Kano Standard-Gauge Railway; which will traverse Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Kwara, Niger, Abuja, Kaduna, and Kano.
Mr Ajuri Ngelale noted that the national construction and household support programme would especially prioritise the Sokoto-Badagry road project “For its importance as some of the states it will traverse are strategic to the agricultural sustainability of the nation.”
Explaining the rationale for the project, the Presidency said, “Within the Sokoto-Badagry Highway corridor, there are two hundred and sixteen agricultural communities, fifty eight large and medium dams spread across 6 states, 7 Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones, one hundred and fifty six local government areas, thirty nine commercial cities and towns, and over 1,000,000 hectares of arable land.”
Other items under the National Construction and Household Support Programme include: “One-off allocation to states and the Federal Capital Territory of ₦10,000,000,000 for the procurement of buses and CNG uplift programme.
“Delivery of ₦50,000 uplift grant each to 100,000 families per state for three months—provision for labour unions and civil society organisations.
“Deployment of ₦155,000,000,000 for the purchase and sale of assorted foodstuff to be distributed across the nation.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is attending the National Economic Council meeting, often chaired by his deputy, Vice President Kashim Shettima, for the first time.
National Economic Council (NEC) was expected to deliberate on the new minimum wage given President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's decision to step down the proposal of the National Minimum Wage Committee at Tuesday’s Federal Executive Council meeting to allow for more consultations with necessary stakeholders, including the state governors, all of whom are members of the National Economic Council (NEC).
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu had said he would only submit a new national minimum wage to the national assembly for passage into law after such talks.
However, council members who briefed State House correspondents after the meeting were silent on the minimum wage matter.
Announcing the resolutions reached, the Minister of Agriculture, Abubakar Kyari, who joined the governors of Imo, Kano and Kogi to brief correspondents, revealed that the federal government has approved a $1,000,000,000 agriculture mechanisation programme that will set up one thousand agro-sector service providers across Nigeria with tractors.
Abubakar Kyari said, “We’ll have a minimum of two thousand tractors a year for the next 5 years and all other aggregation of agricultural commodities is going to be utilized at least nothing less than six hundred thousand youths to man these one thousand service centres.”
Abubakar Kyari stated that the elaborate plan is an arrangement with John Deere and Tata to provide two thousand tractors before the end of the year. They will be rolled out as soon as is feasible, Abubakar Kyari said, adding that the project was approved by the Federal Executive Council last Tuesday.
According to Abubakar Kyari, the Greener Imperative Project, which he said was still in the works, is a €950,000,000 project that will soon be launched.
Abubakar Kyari disclosed that the Federal Government was anticipating another deal with Belarus Tractors to supply two thousand tractors per year for the next 5 years, with nine thousand implements and spare parts, among others.
Abubakar Kyari also said Saudi Arabia had expressed interest in providing two hundred thousand metric tons of red meat every year and 1,000,000 tonnes of soya from Nigeria.
“We have already last week had a meeting with our entrepreneurs and we have come out with a roadmap where we can supply and satisfy that demand.
“We are looking at partnership with foreign governments, not necessarily trying to ask them to come and invest, but asking them what can we produce so that we can sell to you so that we can earn foreign exchange,” Abubakar Kyari added.
In his remarks, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State said that the National Economic Council (NEC) directed the sub-committee on crude oil theft right provide comprehensive recommendations to end the menace during the next meeting.
Governor Hope Uzodimma said that even though the sub-committee was expected to submit its report during Thursday’s meeting, “it was inconclusive.”
Meanwhile, Governor Abba Yusuf of Kano State announced the constitution of the board of the Niger Delta Power Holding, which he said had operated for a long time without a supervising board.
Governor Abba Yusuf disclosed that it is made up of governors of Borno, Katsina, Imo, Ekiti, Kwara, and Akwa Ibom states representing the different geo-political zones.
The Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister of the Economy, Wale Edun, spoke of the activation of the Presidential Food Systems coordinating unit chaired by Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Source: https://punchng.com/fg-rolls-out-n1tn-palliative-massive-construction-projects/
