Abdullahi M. Gulloma
President Muhammadu Buhari Wednesday directed that only made-in-Nigeria goods should henceforth be patronised to save the nation’s foreign exchange and help grow the economy in the face of challenges posed by COVID-19.The minister said this while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the first-ever virtual FEC meeting presided over by President Muhamamdu Buhari.
“On prioritization of made in Nigeria products, as you know the president has set up an economic stimulus committee chaired by the Vice President. The work of the committee is to develop 12 months economic stimulus plan and we are at the final stage of that work.
“We have prioritize spending in that plan to use and consume made in Nigeria. For example some of the public works projects that will employ a lot of our youths is to be done using strictly our raw materials, so we don’t have to import bitumen for example to build our roads,” she said.
The minister said the council also approved request by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) to purchase boats which are manufactured in Nigeria for its surveillance and anti-corruption activities on the maritime waters.Also speaking, the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Mr Sabo Nanono, on his part said, council approved a loan facility of €950,000, about $1.2 billion, agriculture mechanization in the country.
He said the funds would be utilised in 632 local governments across the country and the setting up of 140 processing plants.
He said: “This is going to be a major revolution in the agricultural sector like we have never seen before. I think the executive council has done the right thing and has approved this.
“The key to mechanization is the establishment of 632 tractor serving centers across the country. These serving centres will constitute tractor hiring skill, IT and admin office and a chemical workshop and store for storing inputs for agriculture and even output arising from agricultural sector.
“The key to the tractor hiring skill is that every tractor will have a tracking system so that wherever it is working in this country, you will know at your finger tips where it is working and which area it has covered and how much revenue it’s getting. And these serving centres are going to be privately owned by the indigenes of those local governments.
“It is imperative for everybody now to key into this programme. It is going to be a competitive bid that will involve selection in terms of your experience in agriculture, your finance position, your investment of between N10 to N70 million. Because you maybe probably be handed an asset of over N150 million, so we will not take that chance. So it’s going to be a wholly privately owned affair. The loan will be generated by these service centres and will also be in charge of repayment of these loans.
“We have made our calculation and we have come to the conclusion that if your tractor works for between N65,000 to N75,000 per day, if you have operational cost of about N30,000 to N35,000 you will have a net profit of about N40,000. Our calculation is that between the period of three to four years, you will pay off the loan completely. And then you will have this assets worth over N150 million. “You have to understand that this country in terms of agricultural mechanization is at lowest level. We have only about seven tractors per 100 square kilometers, Kenya has 27 tractors 100 square kilometers. In fact the standard is 127 tractor 100 square kilometers in most developed countries is about 1000 tractors 100 square kilometers. If we are going to move agriculture forward in this country, which we must have to do it because if oil does not become water, it is absolutely necessary for us to mechanise.
“We have estimated 84 to 92 million hectares of land, we are only cultivating about 34 hectares even that is not done at optimum level, because of lack of mechanization. But we trying to change that narrative to a more productive and sustainable and where it will affect every part of this country.
“We anticipate direct job from this in the region of seven million, indirect will be in the region of 20 million or so. So that is the essence of this. “There will be 140 agro processing plants attached to these service centres across the 36 states of the federation. For example, Kaduna, Kano Jigawa axis that is the processing centre for rice, Nassarawa, Benue is cassava processing and so on and so forth, depending on the commodities available to that axis.”
