‘Economic future of North lies in agribusiness’
The Governor of Kwara State, Dr. Abdulfatah Ahmad, has said that the economic future of the Northern region lies squarely in what he identified as “planned agribusiness.”
Governor Ahmad said this yesterday in a presentation he made during a public lecture tagged: “Northern Nigeria Economy Free of Oil Revenue”, organized by the Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF) in Kaduna.
He averred that if the country’s agricultural potentials were harnessed, the economy would be developed and food security achieved without recourse to oil revenue
While appreciating the role of the oil money in the provision of infrastructure, he noted the severe dislocations in the socio-economic and political systems of the country which, he said were mainly caused by the dependence on oil for revenue.
The exploitation of oil, he said, triggered significant policy shifts, especially an ill-advised focus on the export of primary petro-carbon by-products at the expense of agriculture.
He said that though the oil revenue brought unimaginable financial prosperity, it stunted the inexorable emergence of an agrobased industry in Nigeria.
He lamented that agriculture, which used to be the mainstay of the regional and national economy gradually, took the back seat in terms of its share of GDP.
He said: “Within two decades of the discovery of oil, Nigeria transited from self-sufficiency in basic foodstuffs to a net importer of food. Today we rely on imported food such as rice, tomato, fish, poultry and substitutes for those things we used to produce.
“Federal Government statistics shows that Nigeria spends an average of N1.3trillion annually on food importation. The nation’s food import bill is nearly double the federal allocation to the three tiers of government for January 2014. When our receipts for food export are factored in these figures indicate that we are capable of funding our national budget from agribusiness alone. This means that if our agricultural potentials are properly harnessed, we can adequately grow our economy and achieve food security without recourse to oil revenue.”