Ganduje laments Nigeria’s reliance on oil

Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano State has decried what he described as the country’s over reliance on oil revenue.
He said the government must provide enabling environment, policies and incentives for a private sector led agricultural transformation, to unlock the abundant potentials of the sector.
Governor Ganduje stated that his administration decided to put the state on the part of economic growth and sustainable development by intervening substantially in the agricultural sector.
He said: “This involvement includes the guarantee of N1.5 billion for the successful implementation of the state rice development project, to back up the agreement made between the local wheat farmers association and DUFIL PRIMA, a private investor, as well as other interested millers to act as up-takers”.
The governor maintained that Nigeria spends $650 million and N356 billion to import wheat and rice respectively, annually, “despite its diverse productive ecosystem”.
Ganduje, who made the assertion during the flag- off of the 2015 dry season farming at Kura, said the importation of food cannot be allowed to continue as the nation has over 84 million hectares of arable land out of which only 40 per cent is cultivated.
 A statement by the governor’s Director- General, Media and Communications, Halilu Ibrahim Dantiye, said Kano State has agricultural resource endowments comprising of about 1, 754, 200 hectares of arable land, 982, 600 hectares of inland waters and 72, 072 hectares of forest cover, which were hitherto largely underutilized. 
In his remarks, the Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbeh, restated the federal government’s determination to revamp agriculture as a way of creating jobs and boosting the economy, noting that the 200 cattle insemination centres will soon be established across the country.