President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, August 7,
said that the time has come for Nigerians to do more than pay mere lip service
to agriculture, as crude oil and gas exports will no longer be sufficient as
the country’s major revenue earner.
Femi Adesina, the
special adviser to the president on media and publicity, said the leader of the
country made the declaration at an audience with Dr Kanayo Nwanze, the
Nigerian-born president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development
(IFAD), at the presidential villa, Abuja.
“It’s time to go back to the land. We must
face the reality that the petroleum we had depended on for so long will no
longer suffice. We campaigned heavily on agriculture, and we are ready to
assist as many as want to go into agricultural ventures,” the president said.
He also pledged
that his administration would also cut short the long bureaucratic processes
that the Nigerian farmers have to go through to get any form of assistance from
government.
President Buhari
also told the IFAD president that improvement of the productivity of
farmers, dry season farming and creative ways to combat the shrinking of the
Lake Chad would also receive the attention of his administration.
Meanwhile,
still in his bid to bring change to Nigeria, President Buhari has ordered the
ministry to produce a plan for the establishment of a military industrial
complex for the local production of weapons for the needs of the Nigerian
Armed Forces.
The president gave the directive at the graduation ceremony of
the National Defence College, Abuja, through his media aide, Garba
Shehu.
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