Shettima Launches $500m Niger Delta Agric Fund

Vice President Kashim Shettima on Wednesday launched the $500m Niger Delta Agricultural Investment Fund in Abuja.

Shettima launched the fund at the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Summit jointly organised by the Office of the Vice President and the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

The vice president said agriculture remains the foundation of civilisation and political stability, adding, “Before a people raise cities, they must learn to feed them, and before a state earns the loyalty of its citizens, it must secure their daily bread.”

Recalling Nigeria’s agricultural past, he said, “The groundnut pyramids of the North, the cocoa estates of the West, and the palm produce of the East and the Delta financed our earliest schools and hospitals and underwrote the young institutions of a new republic.”

Shettima said the discovery of oil shifted the country’s focus away from agriculture, regretting that the oil boom came with an ease that “dulled the industry of the cutlass,” teaching Nigeria, which once fed itself, to instead “import what its own soil could grow.”

He commended the Niger Delta for championing the investment fund despite its oil wealth.

He said, “what makes this vision inspiring is that it arises from a region that could have rested on its oil wealth and left feeding the nation to other hands.

“The Niger Delta has instead chosen to return to an identity older than crude itself, for the palm oil of these creeks fuelled the commerce of continents long before the first barrel was drilled. It has chosen to transform this region, feed the nation, and attract the world.”

Officially unveiling the fund, Shettima said, “This is where philosophy must give way to action. The Niger Delta Agricultural Investment Fund of 500 million dollars, which we launch today, is a commercial, returns-driven vehicle spanning the value chain, from aquaculture and palm oil to cassava, cocoa, rice, horticulture, marine resources, and livestock.

“Around it, we coordinate the commitments already pledged by the World Bank, the African Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and our private and commercial financiers.

“Above both stands the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment Council, which I am honoured to chair, with the NDDC as its Secretariat. Beneath it lies a demand-side strategy preparing bankable projects across all nine mandate states.”

The vice president said President Bola Tinubu made food security one of the administration’s earliest priorities after assuming office in 2023 because “nations that lose control of their food eventually surrender control of their future.”

He added, “His July 2023 declaration of a state of emergency shifted our national approach from the boardroom to the ground, across production, market stabilisation, and food access.

“This is why mechanisation has been the centrepiece of the drive, and why the administration launched the Renewed Hope Agricultural Mechanisation Programme for 10,000 tractors over five years, alongside local assembly plants, and in parallel with the John Deere Tractorisation Programme, the Greener Hope Project, and the Green Imperative Programme.”

Shettima said government interventions were beginning to yield results, adding that the efforts of the Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Senator Abubakar Kyari, had contributed to price reductions in several staple food items, with some dropping by as much as 50 per cent.

He urged investors, development partners and state governors to see the summit “as the start of an obligation rather than the end of a ceremony,” stressing that “the fund is launched, the commitments are aligned, the council is constituted, and the pipeline awaits your conviction.”

Earlier, the Minister of Regional Development, Abubakar Momoh, said the Tinubu administration had placed agriculture at the heart of its economic transformation agenda because of its potential to create jobs and improve livelihoods.

He said, “The national regional development policy recognises the potentials of every region not just in transforming livelihoods but in attracting investments and growth, hence the Niger Delta Agricultural Development and Investment summit is particularly significant in transforming the fortunes of youths and women across the Niger Delta.”

Momoh urged the private sector, development partners and other stakeholders to work more closely with governments at all levels, saying government alone could not achieve the country’s economic transformation goals.

In his keynote address, Chairman of Origin Group, Prince Samuel Joseph, said the NDDC under the Tinubu administration had been repositioned to drive the economic transformation of the Niger Delta.

He commended the Federal Government for initiatives aimed at unlocking the region’s agricultural potential and improving livelihoods.

Managing Director of the NDDC said the summit marked the beginning of a long-term partnership to unlock the agricultural potential of the Niger Delta.

He urged stakeholders to seize the opportunities created by the summit by building partnerships, mobilising investments, creating jobs and strengthening food security.

Chairman of the NDDC Governing Board, Chiedu Ebie, said the Niger Delta could no longer afford to remain a region of untapped potential.

He said young people deserved greater opportunities, while farmers needed better access to finance, technology, infrastructure and markets to drive sustainable and inclusive development across the region.