President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday said crude
oil and gas exports would no longer be sufficient as the country’s major
revenue earner.
He said time has therefore come for Nigerians to
do more than pay mere lip service to agriculture.
According to a statement by his Special Adviser
on Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President spoke while granting
audience to the Nigerian-born President of the International Fund for
Agricultural Development, Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, inside 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,” Adesina quoted the President as
saying.
Buhari also pledged that his administration would
review the long bureaucratic process that Nigerian farmers had to go through to
get assistance from the government.
He 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 his administration’s attention.
“There is so much to be done. We will try and
articulate a programme and consult organisations like IFAD for advice,” the
President said.
Buhari added that foreign exchange would be
conserved for machinery and other items needed for production, instead of using
it to import things like toothpicks.
Nwanze congratulated Buhari on his victory in the
general elections and assured him that IFAD was ready to assist Nigerian
farmers to boost their activities.
IFAD is an international organisation established
in 1978 to address issues of agriculture and poverty alleviation.
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