The Vice Chairman of the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI), Alhaji Tijjani Tumsah has said that the committee would focus on improving agricultural activities in the region to make it Nigeria’s food basket.
Briefing Journalists on the activities of the committee in 2017 as well as the plans for 2018 in Abuja on Friday, he stressed that it had the mandate to coordinate interventions in the Northeast.
“Our mandate was to coordinate all interventions going on in the North East and as it moves to the recovery phase, plans are already underway to improve agriculture production. In 2018, we are expecting to see more productivity especially in most of the recovered areas in Borno.
“The North East is 22 per cent of the size of Nigeria and we intend to make it a food basket of the nation. There will be better agric inputs, better seeds, fertilizers and better animal production both in meat and milk. We have had partnership meetings with commissioners of agriculture in various states in the Northeast and we are very hopeful that the Northeast will bounce back better in agriculture.
“We have reached advanced stages of discussion with the Seed Council and the Bank of Industry and they have all been using their facilities to ensure we partner for better success,” he said.
Tumsah said that while recovery and rehabilitation were ongoing in the zone, homes and public institutions were also being rebuilt gradually.
He disclosed that approximately 2,000 students from 43 unity schools benefitted from the PCNI’s Safe School Initiative (SSI) programme while the Chibok secondary school had been reconstructed to meet international standards.
“For the SSI programmes, we pay their school fees and other commitments including transport money, pocket money and their needs when they are in schools. The school fees are paid directly to the school; we pay their examination fees while the transport fees are paid to the state. We visit them every term and do a lot of monitoring and evaluation,” he said.
Tumsah reiterated the committee’s commitments to accountability and effort at stabilising the situation at the Northeast.
