Kura: Story growing co
when he was governor of Kano State.
Kura is about 30minutes drive from Kano, the state capital. When our correspondent visited the community which is regarded as the hub of rice production in the state, many of its people were seen engaging in various rice production activities. Some were seen working in their rice farms, some busy at the milling houses that are spread along the road leading into the town, while others were either at the towns rice market or by the road side, helping customers to load bags of rice into trucks or trailers. It was obvious their major occupation is rice cultivation.
Dan-Malam lamented “When governors, ministers, or commissioners pass through Kura to Kano, they see what the people are doing in terms of rice production, but they have never assisted us. This is the only road that links Nigeria with the rest of Africa. We challenge any of the governments to show whatever assistance they ever rendered to us. The only exception was Audu Bako’s administration. He helped us a lot to the extent that we would never forget him. That is why I am calling on the people of Kura, Kore and Garun-Malam to fix a day to pray to Almighty God to forgive Audu Bako. He led us with justice and honesty.”
According to him the community is facing a lot of hardship during the farming process, including the preparation and marketing of their rice, because there is no support coming to them from anywhere. “Maybe now that we have a new president, he will serve as a vehicle for positive change in Kura.”
He explained the reasons behind forming an association. “We established this rice producers association in 1983 to fight unemployment and thuggery in our society. Before now we were about seven to eight members but today we have 185 youth as registered members. Our customers are coming from different countries, such as Niger, Chad and neighbouring States of Jigawa, Kogi and others. They transport our rice to other states like Lagos, Plateau, Kaduna and Maiduguri. We thank the Almighty that even you a journalist can see that the market is full of youths and people are patronizing us. What would have happened to us if we didn’t have a new administration, from 1983 to date, what would have happened to us?
For those that did not do what they were supposed to do for us, we pray to God to make them realise their mistakes, and when they are opportune next time they should copy from those who did well to us while in government.”
The rice producers chairman said the Federal government should pay attention to irrigation farming. “They should know that there is nothing they can use to fight unemployment and crime than the provision of job opportunities. Job opportunity is not necessary to give a person capital, business is not necessary to establish an industry, business is not necessary to employ a casual worker, but they must check and understand the needs of people in the communities. They need to know what type of businesses people are doing and how to help them. Lack of government patronage resulted in a drop in the numbers of farmers in this country. Let’s take for example, my hometown, Kura, we channel dams for irrigation. We don’t bother ourselves on government. They didn’t want to know how we get our little token which we get on the road selling rice here.
Government should assist us with tractors and the milling machines. The truth is that there is nothing government can do for us that will be to our satisfaction. There is nothing they have told us that they will do ,that they