By Kabiru Dogon Daji Birnin Kebbi
Th e federal government has said that it had purchased two million metric tonnes of assorted grains from the local farmers to feed the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPS) in the North-east as a calculated attempt to encourage indigenous cultivation. Acting President Yemi Osibanjo, who disclosed yesterday in Birnin Kebbi while addressing the Progressive Governors Forum, said the idea was to boost the morale of the local farmers in addition to discouraging importation. He said since life had been restored in Bama, the second largest city in Borno state, the federal government planned to “completely rehabilitate the displaced people and recruit doctors, security agents and all that needed to make the habitants have sense of belonging.”
“We would do that to show the world that we can rehabilitate our displaced people,” he said. Speaking earlier, the Chairman of the Progressive Governors Forum and the Imo state Governor, Chief Rochas Ewelle Okorocha, briefed the Acting President of the outcome of the For He said the meeting had noted that the APC governors had done well, but didn’t bring to the federal government’s notice their individual eff orts, adding that “it is high time for progressive governors to clear the impressions in some quarters that they thieves, crooks and all that.” He said the meeting dwelled so much on how they would improve their Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) to reduce total dependency on the federal government statutory allocation.
