Technology Key To Tackling Poverty, Food Insecurity – Plateau Governor

Plateau State Governor Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang has urged technology experts to develop practical, home-grown digital solutions to address Nigeria’s pressing challenges, particularly poverty and food insecurity.

The governor stated this at the Rise 2026 Conference of the Nigeria Computer Society, themed “Harnessing Digital Innovation and Emerging Technologies for Inclusive Growth and Economic Renaissance”, held in Jos, Plateau State on Tuesday.

“Since coming on board, we realised that at this stage of our development, we need to leapfrog from where we are to where we can take our people out of poverty and contribute meaningfully to Nigeria’s GDP.

“We realised early on that the only tool we can leverage is the digital space, and that is why we have tried to deploy technology to promote governance,” Muftwang said.

The governor highlighted Plateau’s readiness to leverage digital technology for governance and economic transformation.

“We have done so in our Internal Revenue Agency, where from a revenue of about N800m per month, today we are doing over N4bn. This is just the tip of the iceberg.

“We are not yet where we ought to be, because we need to grow the economy to the point that we can bring a lot more into the tax net and harness better revenue to deliver social services.

“We have deployed technology in our civil service reform, starting with biometrics to get the exact number of people on the payroll. We are deploying technology in that space.

“We have collaborated with the UNDP to set up a bigger innovation hub at our state polytechnic in Mangu LGA, a point of convergence for our young people where they can express themselves and deliver solutions to the problems that confront us,” he stated.

Focusing on agriculture, the governor lamented low productivity levels despite the state’s agricultural potential.

He noted that Plateau potato farmers currently achieve only 7 tonnes per hectare compared to the global average of 40 tonnes, and local dairy cows produce just 2.5 litres of milk per day against a global benchmark of 20 litres.

“We cannot continue to go by the manual methods that we use. We’ve got to find innovative tools that will deliver better production of food so that we can have food security and even food sovereignty,” he said

Governor Muftwang announced a rebranding initiative, urging stakeholders to now refer to the popular Irish potato grown in the state as “Plateau Potatoes”.

The governor called on the gathering of technology experts to move beyond talk and deliver actionable solutions.

“I pray that this conference will not be a talk shop, that this conference will be a solution-driven workshop.

“We want to move from being mere consumers of hardware to developing our own hardware and software,” he stated.