Buhari’s Govt Recorded 6.3m New Farmers, 2m School Enrolment – Fashola

Babatunde Fashola, Minister of Power, Works and Housing, says since the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration came into power in 2015, two million children have enrolled in school.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Commonwealth Head of Government Meeting (CHOGM 2018), Fashola said the current administration, has also recorded 6.3 million new rice farmers.

The minister noted that the government is paying more attention to the rural communities in job creation and development.

He further revealed that the government is running a pilot housing programme in 33 states of the federation, with the cultural and financial preferences of intended users at the heart of the project.

“I am happy to say here that President (Muhammadu) Buhari’s commitment to local agriculture development has provided a very useful anchor,” Fashola said.

“Today, not only are we producing more food than we were yesterday, especially food crops like rice and wheat, what has happened is that in less than thirty-six months, we now have a record of 6.3 million new rice farmers, and the emphasis is on the word, new. And they are in the rural areas.

“So those people are less likely, and the emphasis is on less likely, to leave to the cities. When food prices went up and government tried to intervene, and meet with the farmers to see what we could do about our food prices, one of the retorts we got is ‘leave us alone, we have lived on the margins of this society for a long time, now that our own prosperity has come, let the people in the urban centres deal with it, just buy the food at the price’.

“One of the titbits I got recently was that 60,000 of those farmers are going on Hajj pilgrimage with their own money, they used to be state funded. They are going to take their wives and their children. They are less likely to leave the farm.

“Some of the social welfare programmes of the government, which you might have heard about — school feeding, N-Power — is also making some impact.

“I am happy to say that From 10 million plus children reported to be out of school, that number has reduced by two million. If we continue on that trajectory, we should wind down that big burden.

“The point to make here is that most of these things are happening around rural communities. That does not suggest that there are no problems around urban centres.”