By Bode Olagoke Abuja After series of meetings in the last one year, governors of the Northwest states have now agreed on a common front bordering on the cooperation and integration within the region leading to establishment of Economic Commission and agriculture development. Th e governors have, therefore, adopted the legal framework within which the process would function after a comprehensive presentation by the Arewa Research and Development Project (ARDP), the main consultants vested with the responsibility of driving the process forward. Speaking with newsmen at the end of the meeting, in Abuja at the weekend, Katsina state Governor, Aminu Masari, said: “We have signed an MoU to establish an economic commission between the seven North-western states and you know we have been on this for more than a year. Th at is what we agreed and discussed upon. We discussed on agriculture.” On the implications of the MoU on the lives of people in those states, Masari said: “Th e whole idea is to improve the quality of life of the people. We have comparative advantage in agriculture almost equal or even more than any other region in the country and we believe that the region was developed based on agriculture and we can still do it. So really, when we do agriculture, we are doing everything for the country.
“Agriculture under normal circumstances is supposed to employ more than 70 percent of the population. Th e population is rural and they depend on agriculture so, agriculture off ers much more opportunity for employment from primary to secondary and to processing.” While assuring that the seven states involved would invest heavily to ensure that the eff orts “immediately create massive jobs” for the people, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives said they had agreed that Arewa Research and Development Project should serve as a consultant to drive the process forward.
Th e governors were also briefed by MTN on Animal Identifi cation Management Solutions (AIMS) which, among other things, was targeted towards mitigating cattle rustling with the aid of tracking device. Other governors at the meeting were: Governor Abubakar Bagudu of Kebbi state, Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa state, AbdulAziz Yari of Zamfara state, Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto state, Nasir El-Rufa’i of Kaduna state and Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano state.
