According to a Press Statement signed by Press Secretary to the governor, Mr. Abubakar Al-Sadique, says a team from the CBN led by the head of Agricultural Development Programme, Hajiya Amina Umar visited the governor in Abuja on State governments engagement on Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme.

Hajiya Amina Umar commended Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar for the “successful implementation of the Anchor Borrowers rice farming scheme in Bauchi State that shows the Buhari administration’s agricultural programme is on the right track.”

She therefore urged other state governors to copy the Bauchi State experience in which the governor personally visited rice farms to assess the performance of the programme, pointing out that with commitment to agriculture, the nation has vast arable land that can feed not only the nation but the entire West African sub-region.

Responding, Governor Abubakar assured that his administration is always ready to collaborate with Central Bank of Nigeria and any organisation that will bring development to the state, assuring that his administration is poised to create the necessary enabling environment that will create jobs to “our unemployed youth who, in spite of threats, and against all odds stood by our party, the APC, in the 2015 elections.”

While lamenting the poor state of the nation’s economy, as a result of which the APC was short of providing the number of jobs it promised during campaigns, Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar said the party had performed beyond average “under the economic circumstances it came into being and with the paucity of resources at the disposal of our governments.”

The governor said the Central Bank of Nigeria’s State governments’ engagement on Accelerated Agricultural Development Scheme is in line with the campaign promises of the All Progressives Congress, which his administration pursues seriously since its inauguration in 2015.

Governor Abubakar had while addressing farmers after visiting farmlands with over 2500 hectres of rice in Itas Gadau and Zaki local government areas in June this year, said his administration had provided 400 million naira to the Anchor Borrowers’ programme as a palliative measure for the farmers to continue with cultivation that would have been hampered by the delay in the release of funds to associations by commercial banks.

He told the farmers that his administration was compelled to take that action because of the failure of commercial banks to release the funds to the Anchor Borrowers Rice Farmers associations in the state, but assured them that the problems encountered in accessing the funds from the CBN-supported scheme in the state were being addressed with the banks.

He explained that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari had suspended the importation of rice and introduced the policy of its local production because the nation is endowed with everything it needs to produce enough to feed the nation and to “fully harness the agricultural endowments in the country”.

Governor Abubakar lauded the efforts and performance of the farmers and their commitment to the rice cultivation, stressing that with the continuous governments’ support, Nigeria which has abundant arable land suitable for rice cultivation in most states of the federation including Bauchi, will soon produce enough rice to feed the nation and be an exporter of the product to neighbouring countries.

Governor Abubakar had once explained to protesting farmers in Bauchi that “President Muhammadu Buhari properly acknowledges the sufferings in the land, but also reminds us that we have to make sacrifices before we take Nigeria to the Promised Land. He always reminds Nigerians that Nigeria is our country, and there is no any other country for us, so we must remain here and salvage it together.”

“My administration, like the Buhari administration does everything within the limited resources available to government to encourage our local farmers to boost agriculture especially rice production. Our youths are unemployed while most of our people especially rural dwellers are famers and most of the fertile land we’re endowed with still remains uncultivated. This necessitated our administration’s determination to exploit the opportunities that abound in agriculture for our state and nation to regain the greatness”, the governor said.

The statement further said the governor had pledged government’s support to the Rice Farmers’ Association while recalling that since assuming office as governor of Bauchi state in 2015, the administration has facilitated the successful implementation of all Federal government’s development programmes, especially agriculture in like the Anchor Borrowers programme in the state.