Today Nigeria celebrates its democracy day by June 12 since year 2018 when President Buhari moved the celebration from the usual anniversary of May, 29 since year 2000.
President Buhari in his national broadcast commemorate the day, assured farmers of availability and affordable fertilizers to soon come their way for this year 2020 farming session.
According to Buhari, Agriculture has remained the major sector that shall achieve his administration drive towards his economy diversification agenda he set to achieve; saying about 5000 Agro-rangers had been deployed to protect farmer and agri-business investment.
The President added that now Nigerians are set to grab the opportunity in the agricultural sector, he assured them of his government support through the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme and similar scheme to achieve such.
Buhari in his statement; “Agriculture remain key to our economic diversification strategy, the Presidential fertilizer initiative programme will continue to deliver significant quantities of affordable and high-quality fertilizers to our farmers.
This initiative has also revived 3 fertilizer blending plants and has created a significant number of both direct and indirect jobs.
“Government is also revamping the cotton, textile, and garment sector via a CBN Textile Revival Intervention Fund that would considerably reduce foreign exchange spent on cotton and other textile imports.
“Through the food security initiative, we are promoting “Grow What We Eat” and “Eat What We Grow”. I am also delighted that more and more Nigerians are taking advantage of the opportunities in the agriculture and agri-business sector. I assure you that the government will continue to support the Agriculture sector through the CBN Anchor Borrowers Programme and similar schemes.
“To protect our farming investments, we have deployed 5,000 Agro-Rangers, and employed 30,289 into our Para-military agencies.
“We are also integrating rural communities to the formal economy by extending access to credit and inputs to rural farmers and building feeder roads.”
Buhari added that effort are underway on growing the non-oil sector and have been yielding results which can be seen in the revenue generated from cocoa and sesame seed with an increased of $79.4 million and $153 million respectively.
He also reassured that effort to diminish the activities of insurgents and bandits is in top gear as the threat to food security has been reversed by the aggressive investment in agriculture.
Buhari continued, “Ending insurgency, banditry, and other forms of criminality across the nation is being accorded appropriate priorities and the men and women of the Armed Forces of Nigeria have considerably downgraded such threats across all geo-political zones.
“All the Local Governments that were taken over by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa have long been recovered and are now occupied by indigenes of these areas who were hitherto forced to seek a living in areas far from their ancestral homes.
“The total collapse of the economies of these areas, which constituted a threat to our food security, has also been reversed with the gradual recovery of farming and other economic activities”, he stated.
