Buhari Woos Investors, Promises To Increase Funding In Agriculture

The president made this known over the weekend during the sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI), held Nariobi, Kenya.

President Buhari who advised the African countries to learn from Japan on developing agriculture said, ‘‘This year, in Nigeria, we started an aggressive farming programme that entails organising farmers into cooperatives in the second and third tier of government.

‘‘We intend to put more resources in our 2017 budget, especially in the procurement of machinery for land clearing, fertilizers, pesticides and training of less-educated farmers, as farm extension instructors.

‘‘We have already registered some success this year in a number of states, we identified some 13 states that will be self-sufficient in rice, wheat and grains before the end of 2018.

‘‘We are very positive that soon we will be able to export these food products. We are also lucky that the farming season in the northern part of the country has been very good and we are expecting a bumper harvest this year,’’ the President said.

Meanwhile, President Buhari also assured the existing and prospective foreign investors that their investments in Nigeria will be fully secured and protected.

He told the Japanese leader that his administration will do everything within its power to defeat the Boko Haram terrorists and stop the destruction of the oil pipeline by Niger Delta militants.

He said the militants must dialogue with the Federal government or be dealt with in the same way as Boko Haram.

“We are talking to some of their leaders. We will deal with them as we dealt with Boko Haram if they refuse to talk to us.

“As a government, we know our responsibility, which is to secure the environment. It is clear to us that lenders won’t fund projects in insecure environments.

“We realize that we have to secure the country before we can efficiently manage it,” the President said.

‘‘Japan has the knowledge, technology and capital to assist African countries to develop and Japanese firms are in a very good position to successfully compete for the development of infrastructure in Nigeria,’’ he said.

The President then requested for increased participation of the Japanese government and the private sector in the Nigerian economy.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday, 26th August left the country for Kenya in order to participate at the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD VI).

The summit, co-organised by the Government of Japan, the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on Africa, the United Nations Development programme, the African Union and the World Bank, will focus on promoting structural economic transformation through diversification and industrialization in promoting resilient health system for quality life and promoting social stability for shared prosperity.