President Muhammadu Buhari said on Friday that oil and gas exports alone cannot continue to be the country’s major revenue earner, and Nigerians need to to do more than pay mere lip service to agriculture.
According to a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, the President spoke while meeting with the Nigerian-born President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Dr. Kanayo Nwanze, 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,” Adesina quoted the President as saying.
Buhari also pledged that his administration would reform the convoluted bureaucratic process that Nigerian farmers had to navigate in order 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 be major priorities for 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 reserved to purchase such things as machinery and other items needed to ramp up agricultural production.
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 was established in 1978 to address issues of agriculture and poverty alleviation around the world.
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