Industrialising Northern Nigeria: The Kashim Shettima model
About six years ago, then Central Bank Governor and now Emir of Kano, His Royal Highness, Mallam Muhammadu Sanusi II, had stated that the insecurity challenges of the nation cannot be tackled in the most perfect way without tackling the economic problems which has left many poor.
The Emir who had spoken at the flag off of the Financial Inclusion Strategy Pilot Implementation which held then in Maiduguri, said the present security challenges faced by the country could be traced back to the nation’s checkered economic crisis.
He said any attempt to solve one without the other will be a wasted effort as it was the responsibility of all to bring available resources to the table in order to tackle the problem of insecurity in the entire country.
To state that insurgency has been a huge threat to the economy of northeastern Nigeria, especially Borno State, is to over reinstate an obvious fact. For well over 10 years, security and the quest for reestablishing peace in Borno State has toppled discussions.
Indeed, but for the resilience of Governor Kashim Shettima and the highly spirited and perhaps the model most states of the federation need to adopt if truly the much touted diversification and non-reliance on oil revenue is to be achieved .
Call it a holistic industrial revolution dream, it is the epicentre of Borno’s push for economic self-reliance and projection. With no less than 10 factories situated in the industrial park, the expansive land radiates an economic transformation that Borno State would come to be known for in no distant time.
Amongst several industries located in the park are a solar panel production and plastic plant, a tomatoes processing plant, onions dehydration plant, water line plant and a corn chips plant. Other plants include an audacious garri processing plant, a pilot juice plant and an experimental laboratory farm house. It is indeed a complete industrial park with adequate security and power supply all provided for by the Kashim Shettima administration with a public private partnership in mind.
Worth commending, the value chain of this bold scheme cannot be quantified in terms of output, employment and revenue.
For instance, the solar panel plant which is almost set for production is about the biggest in the country with the capacity of producing 40megawatts of energy annually on just a shift and if operated on triple shifts basis daily will produce 120 megawatts, by far the largest in the country. This is even as no less than 100 persons are expected to be employed in the plant alone.
Of interest too is the tomatoes processing plant which also produces mango, carrot, gwags, water melon juices all year round as it adapts to the all year varying periods of maturity for the different plants. About 200 workers will be employed on the 3,000msq facility with a targeted 150 tonnes yearly output.
While the onions dehydration plant is the first of its kind in the country as it also dehydrates crops like ginger for marketing needs, the water line plant aside bottled water, also produces ketchup and others.
The drive by the Kashim Shettima administration to further establish a cassava processing plant to ensure that the hitherto neglected crop in the state is being harnessed to its full potentiality. Given the cheapness of cassava in the state, there can be no clear way of encouraging farmers than this deliberate strive by the Borno State governor.
To add the importance of the juice plant, the industrial site also has its own pilot juice plant, so created a s laboratory for tasting the viability and palatability of the juices being produced there. A farm center necessitates this, giving its capacity to produce over 3million seedlings of different crops per season with the advantage of an automated weather control facility inbuilt at the facility.
It is now rife for the private sector to move in and take advantage of huge economic and revenue potentials the Industrial park seeks to provide. And with the gradual returning of peace in the north east region, it is time for a collective change in narrative.
This commendable step by Kashim Shettima must be seen for its pure merit and tapped from by the other leaders in the north and indeed across the country. As noble as it is, the bid to diversify and make move the nation from a consuming to a producing society must just be practical. It is time to get practical - the Kashim Shettima example.
Kingsley wrote this piece from Maiduguri