By Victoria Onehi
The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Senator Abubakar Kyari, has said the Federal Government is Committed to the Development of the North East.
The Minister was responding to concerns raised by the National Assembly North East Caucus that the North – East was excluded completely from the Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone (SAPZ) program of the Federal Government.
Kyari at a media briefing on Saturday said considering the fact that this concern is coming from members of the National Assembly Caucus of the North-East, it becomes very imperative that Ministry set the record straight because they got it all wrong.
He states: ” In the Agricultural Sector, the President approved the Presidential Food System Coordination Council under the leadership of the Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima GCON with inclusion of governors from the six geopolitical zones and other critical stakeholders across the zones. The essence is to not only ensure the participation of all tiers of government but to guarantee that no State is excluded from the design and implementation of all our agricultural and food security programmes and initiatives.
” On the 8th of April we commenced the groundbreaking ceremony for the Design-Build-and Operate of the Kaduna Agro-Industrial Hub, and the Cross River Agro-Industrial Hub on the 10th of April 2025, which was the reference point for their worry and concern. But how did we get to this point of doing a representative signpost of a milestone in the project.
“The SAPZ programme was launched in 2022 based on its conceptual design of Phase 1 in 2019. This project is a Federal Government enabled initiative with subscription by the State Governments of the Federation. Therefore, all State Governments were expected to individually Express Interest in the program. For clarity the following steps were taken to arrive at the Program as it is today:
“The selection Process: In 2019, each state governor was notified in writing to express interest with an attached eligibility criteria that will enable them to participate in phase 1 of the program. Upon receipt of their expression of interest, a joint team comprising the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Federal Ministry of Finance, and the Development Finance Institution, in this case the African Development bank conducted a mission to each of the states to verify the fulfillment of the eligibility criteria as a selection process.
“This stage got 8 States that qualified namely: Kaduna, Kano, Kwara, Oyo, Ogun, Imo, Cross River, and FCT.
However, upon the assumption of office by this administration, we reviewed development potential of this program under the renewed hope agenda of Mr. President and decided that no state will be left behind. Consequently, the Vice President’s first international mission was to Rome, Food System Summit where he galvanizes more funding to enable us take more states. He also embarked on a second mission to the World Food Price meeting in Des Moines, Iowa, USA where he obtained a commitment of 1 billion USD from the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB) for the sole purpose of bringing on board more states.”
The Minister said the SAPZ is a Subsidiary Loan Agreement Program, which means that the Federal Government onboards the obtained loans to the state for the implementation of the program.
“Considering this is a loan, it is solely the discretion of the state to participate or not, and we have cases where states have not expressed interest. The overall policy directive of Mr. President is that all States must be brought on board. However, this will be in phases. We are convinced that as other states see the actuality of this project, they get more interested and therefore express their interest in being the first stage of being onboarded. Perhaps, this is the case with the North East Caucus seeing two landmark events being held back-to-back in Kaduna and Cross River States.”
“The Phase 2 of the Program had already commenced in earnest. I have personally communicated to all the states that are not in phase one in writing notifying them of the program and to express interest. Consequently, we have received Expression of Interests from 27 States but only 10 States fully complied with the eligibility criteria which includes three States from the North-East namely Gombe Borno and Bauchi States for the first tranche of phase 2 as they will be 3 tranches of onboarding states in the phase 2.
“So,the sweeping statement by the Caucus that “the North East was completely excluded” is not correct. We are also confident that more States will do the needful to fulfill the eligibility criteria to enable us capture them in the second tranche funding of Phase 2. I therefore also want to appeal to the legislators especially the North East NASS Caucus to appeal to the other Governors of the North East namely Taraba, Yobe and Adamawa to reinvigorate their interest in the Program and to ensure they fulfil the eligibility criteria for the second phase.”
The Minister assured the legislators that the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda is anchored on the need for inclusivity adding that beyond the SAPZ Program, the Federal Government has continued to provide targeted support for farmers in the North-East and across the country.
He said some of the recent examples include the following: “In Gombe State, over 8,000 wheat farmers have benefited from subsidised inputs to boost dry-season production. In Bauchi State, we are working with the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI) on the Irrigate Nigeria project, which aims to develop over 3 million hectares for sustainable, year-round irrigation farming. In Adamawa State, we recently commissioned 120 housing units and a Farmer Empowerment Centre, a major step toward restoring livelihoods and improving living conditions for smallholder farmers.”
He assured the people of North-East — and indeed all Nigerians — that this government is unwavering in its commitment to equitable agricultural transformation. “From the plains of the North-East to the riverine belts of the South-South, and from the cocoa-rich soils of the South-West to the food baskets of the North-Central, our agenda is one of shared prosperity, food security, and national development as envisioned by the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.” Kyari noted.
