Nigeria better today, presidency insists
• Marks first year of Buhari’s second term • Unveils ‘ factsheet’ to highlight achievements
THE presidency yesterday insisted Nigeria is better today than it was when President Muhammadu Buhari took over the reins of government on May 29, 2015.
The declaration came as Buhari marks the fifth year of his administration and specifically the end of the first year of his second term in office today .
Accordingly, the presidency released a “fifth anniversary factsheet” detailing its achievements nationwide. “The government swept into office on the wings of change, and that change has been wrought in nearly all phases of national life. Where the lofty goals are yet to be attained, it is work in progress, and eyes are firmly fixed on the ball. No distraction,” said Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Femi Adesina.
The spokesman said further: “The three umbrella areas on which government based its interventionist agenda are: security, reviving the economy ( with particular emphasis on job creation, especially for youths), and fighting corruption. In these three areas, where we are today cannot be compared with where we used to be.
“By May 2015, insecurity had badly fractured the fabric of the nation. No one could wager that the country would survive the next month, not to talk of anoth
er year. Bombs went off like firecrackers. Insurgents ran riot round the country. Other forms of crime and criminality held sway. Life was nasty, brutish and short. Over five years, the battle has been taken to insurgents and criminals. And they are being extinguished by the day, and very close to complete extirpation. “The economy, long dependent on a mono product – petroleum, is being retooled, refocused, with diversification as a task that must be accomplished. Agriculture has been given a fillip, manufacturing has got a shot in the arm, and solid minerals are contributing a large chunk to the Gross Domestic Product ( GDP). The country is very close to food security, with rice, beans, maize, millet, and all sorts of grain no longer imported. We now eat what we grow.
“On the war against corruption, no quarter is asked, and none is given. Commit the crime, do the term. No retreat, no surrender. Facts speak for themselves. And that is what we present at this auspicious season of the fifth anniversary of the Buhari administration. Facts are stubborn things, no matter how anybody tries to deny, distort or deride them.”
On the factsheet, which began with the economy, the presidency highlighted its strides in the agricultural sector. It noted: “The Anchor Borrowers Programme ( ABP) of the Central Bank of Nigeria, launched by President Muhammadu Buhari on November 17, 2015, made available more than N200 billion in funding to more than 1.5 million smallholder farmers of 16 different commodities ( rice, wheat, maize, cotton, cassava, poultry, soy beans, groundnut, fish), cultivating over 1.4 million hectares of farmland; the ABP substantially raised local production of rice, doubling the production of paddy as well as milled rice between 2015 and 2019; between 2016 and 2019, more than 10 new rice mills came on- stream in Nigeria. Many of the existing mills expanded their capacity and several new ones are under construction; more than a billion dollars of private sector in vestments in the production of rice, wheat, sugar , poultry, animal feed, fertilizers, etc., since 2015; Federal Executive Council approval ( 2020) for a National Agriculture Mechanisation Programme, ‘ the Green Imperative’, in partnership with the Gov - ernment of Brazil and multilateral financing institutions.
The Presidential Fertilizer Initiative: launched in Januar y 2017, as a government- togovernment agreement with the Kingdom of Morocco; more than a million metric tonnes of fertilizer produced since 2017. This translated to distribution of more than 18 million 50kg bags of NPK fertilizer in the first three years of the PFI); 22 blending plants resuscitated ( combined installed capacity of more than 2.5m MT); price reduction from 9,000- 11,000 per bag, to 5,500; FX sa vings of $ 150m annually through the substitution of imported components with locally manufactured ones; subsidy savings of N50 billion annually.
On making business work, the presidency highlighted its support for micro, small and medium enterprises. It said the administration launched a series of funding and capacity development initiatives designed to support MSMES: the new Development Bank of Nigeria ( DBN) finally took off, with initial funding of US$ 1.3 billion ( N396.5 billion); to provide medium and long- term loans to MSMES; since 2017, the DBN disbursed a total of N100 billion through the bank’s 27 Participating Financial Institutions ( PFIS) impacting more than 100,000 MSMES; 52 per cent of loans disbursed in 2019 were to youths and women- owned businesses; Bank of Industry disbursed more than N400 billion in loans to large, medium, small and micro enterprises since 2016; it also established a N5 billion Fund for Artisanal Miners, as part of the Federal Ministry of Mines and Solid Minerals Development’s Programme to boost mining activities in Nigeria, as well as a $ 20 million Fund to support young technology entrepreneurs in Nigeria; the MSME Clinics, which bring relevant government agencies together with small businesses operating in various cities across the country, to enable the agencies to provide direct support to these businesses.
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